Kitchen Garden Forum

I was singing the praises of the early tomato Latah on the forum a week or so ago. My wife has just chased a blackbird off the plant - one ripe fruit quite badly eaten, and two or three others pecked.
This is a first for us, though some years ago we did suspect pheasants of having a go at another early ripening variety.
I hope it doesn't mean we're going to have to start netting our outdoor tomatoes against bird damage, as well as our fruit trees, brassicas, etc.
Mind you, it could be the variety. Latah is a very open plant, displaying the fruit very clearly. Or it could be pure spite - I've been more successful this year than usual at keeping the blackbirds out of the fruit cage...

Could they be after moisture rather than the fruit? We're having crowds at our bird bath this year.

We often used to get them in the commercial houses and I've had one in my greenhouse this year.They probably are after moisture,try leaving a plant saucer with water in around where the toms are.

Yes, they probably are after moisture, although it is available in the garden - a bird bath and an upturned dustbin lid.
We've had a similar problem in other years, though not so far this year, with blue tits pecking at the fruit on our espalier apple trees for moisture. It's a kind of race each year: I can net the trees, but not until I've done the summer pruning, which doesn't happen until the first week in August. I've just got to keep fingers crossed that they don't do any/too much damage until then.

Because of the extreme weather I have had both front and back doors propped open and having so many young Swallows about this year and they are really playful and daring so one flew through the house then two until I had almost a constant stream through the house. I just let them play as they were not doing any harm.
Last night I was watching Television when I had a visit from a Long Eared Bat then two then four and then two came to roost in my curtains and I thought if I closed the front door that will stop them flying through but what that succeeded in doing was to send the buggers all over the house and sadly my bedroom door was open!! I had to shut the doors push all downstairs into the lounge and open all the windows wide and shoo them out. Close the lounge door and extract 8 from my bedroom through the window. I have a colony of about 200 in the loft and I thought at one point they were all going to invade me. The point is how did they all cotton on to the fact that there was free passage through the house.
I have had this before but not in the numbers that I experienced yesterday.

Fascinating, Johnboy. We get the odd bat in the house from time to time, but never in those numbers. We also had a swallows' nest - just one - in our garage for years and years, which meant that the up-and-over garage door had to be left slightly open all summer. Unfortunately one spring I walked into the garage just as the pair had arrived to inspect the nest. They panicked and flew out, and we haven't had swallows there since. (I can't believe it was the same pair all those years, I think offspring must have taken over when the original pair died.) Also, we usually have house martins, but not this year: I suspect sparrows had moved into their nests before they returned from the south. Then only yesterday we saw house martins starting to build a new nest under the eaves, presumably for a late brood.

Found a lone Pipistrelle bat in our shower cubicle the other week! I staggered in from a night shift, without my glasses on, and thought the kids had left something hideous on the shower floor, and nearly jumped out of my skin when it moved!

OH took it outside and released it,(thinks he is an expert 'coz he went on a 'bat day' course when he used to work for the National Trust); it looked very cute and furry close up, tiny little teeth! It seemed happy enough and flew off....

Hi Ken,
This year I have 14 pairs of Swallows on the plot this year and the second brood are about to fly and then there will be a 3rd and with some a 4th brood.
This is a regular Swallow breeding station and when the fist brood flew they all went up to the power lines and it looked like the Autumn migration.
As best I could count them there were 52 younguns on the wires and most of them have moved away now but I suspect not far.

I have noticed that if a house martins nest is destroyed early in the season and repeatedly it becomes a group effort to rebuild the nest(nothing to do with sex etc.)Feel slightly sorry for next door neighbores(correct spelling),who were trying to sell house,you do not know who will be happy with slippery deposits on your front doorstep
I have to say though that the best sight that really does raise my spirits is when the swallows swoop down to the dewpond to drink or for insects.

Deb,beware those tiny little teeth,bats can carry rabies.

We usually have some swallows at the farm but this year nothing. There is a severe shortage of insects which explains the lack of swallows. I have never encountered a year like this before, is it just a tempory shortage or has something changed.
I was watching late TV, the BBC telling us how to save rain water to use in the loo, a sick joke when there is such a shortage of rain, I used it up in the garden long ago, now dependent on tap water so we pay for that as if it's going in their sewers which it isn't.
The man was using partly composted wood shavings in a dry loo, didn't say how they partially compost them.
As for leaving the tap running during tooth brushing, I never have done that. They think we are all morons
Allan

Luckily OH handled the bat carefully, I just got a close up look! They do very cute though....I've never seen one close up before.

Also, I don't think we have rabies in this country...

ken wrote:Also, I don't think we have rabies in this country...

Sadly I think bats are the exception to our general immunity.

going back to allens lack of insects ,we seem to have more than usual, i suspect local micro climates and environment make a difference, ours is an "untidy" garden so there is alot of dead and decaying matter about,