Honeysuckle 2015

When we moved here nine years ago, the honeysuckle stump (someone's old Christmas tree that had been allowed to grow enormous!) looked like this. That is daughter number three aged just six.

There were self-seeded strands of young honeysuckle growing near it the following spring which I tied over the top of it thinking to make it look a little more attractive. That worked. This looks better than a bare stump.

Other plants came to live by the stump too, Scaly Male Fern (Dryopteris affinis), brambles (which I pull out), holly, rushes, bracken, and a downy birch tree. I left the birch, which you can see growing to the right of the stump in the photo below, last year and am thinking of letting it grow there as a support for the honeysuckle which now needs something to climb up. Time will tell whether this is a good idea.

Beyond the honeysuckle stump, just over the field fence, near those two dead stalks of dock, I think there is a Chiffchaff nest in among the bracken and some cypress branches we left there. I saw a bird flitting to and fro collecting food or nesting material the other day. There is a Chiffchaff chiffing right outside the window as I write and it or its friends have been quite vocal over the last few days. I'm wishing it breeding success.

There are Willow Warblers about too but they are not being so loud at the moment.