As I have said before I am in two minds about adding too much junk to a woodland. Junk? well bird boxes, feeders, wind chimes, gnomes… where could it all end. Plastic bluebells?

I held off for a long time but this summer I added a drinking station, basically a very large square shaped flower pot/container sunk into the ground and regularly topped up with water.  This has been used but so far I have only seen a few birds and a squirrel taking a drink. Then I made a luxury hedgehog box and hid that under a fallen log covered with ivy. This remains empty.

Recently I have installed a bird feeder and yesterday it was in more or less constant use. Nothing amazing, there were Blue, Coal and Great Tits, a Robin a Hedge Sparrow and a couple of Chaffinches on the ground underneath and a squirrel which showed interest but had not yet worked out how to get to it, not long before it works that out I suspect.

There were also Blackbirds and a Chiffchaff close by and a couple of Crows swooped in but I think they spotted me and swooped out again in short order. So not bad after about 10 days since it was installed.

I could conceivably add another feeder for fat balls but that is definitely it…. So no wind chimes and gnomes can bed down somewhere else.