I must apologise to all present at our August meeting, and in particular to Colin for omitting to mention in my previous post, the other significant part of the evening.

Apparently with very little notice, Colin put together an amazing montage of video clips of wildlife which he’s photographed around Colin and Yvonne’s garden and stream over the last few years.  And all captured with camera and software equipment which Colin has put together himself. What a clever chap!

Everyone present was thrilled with all the clips we were shown – a diverse range of herons, buzzards and owls taking frogs from their pond; otters, dippers,  sparrowhawks and gooseanders along their stream, and amazing footage of sparrowhawks and bird feeders with a woodpecker snucking behind the feeder as the sparrowhawk approached, and only then flying off fast to safety, as the sparrowhawk passed the feeder.

This was truly inspirational stuff and a fascinating insight into how lucky we are to have all this wildlife visiting our gardens – even if we rarely witness much of the action in person.

I don’t have any of Colin’s images to include, though perhaps I might be able to persuade him to provide links to some of the clips for anyone unable to make the meeting last week?

My sole and rather feeble excuse for this glaring omission is that we’ve had 5 grandchildren and their parents with us over the bank holiday, which rather tired me out and distracted me.

However,  one of the pluses of their visit was more frequent trips down to our stream, and as a result seeing for the first time ever on our stream (as indeed on one of Colin’s memorable video clips) the iridiscent blue flash and blur of a passing kingfisher.

Colin explained that these are likely to be juvenile birds expanding into new territory, and that our type of upland stream probably wouldn’t support birds year round, but still a great thrill to see it, even if my photos of it as I whizzed round give just a brief impressionistic flash of blue. Much later after scanning several times the 6 images I’d taken in 2 bursts on the camera as it flashed away from me, with explosive white droppings left in a trail, I could make out it had actually settled on a perch beneath the willow branches…

Though I’m still perplexed by the other blue in the images amongst the leaves – there are no blue flowers there.  Might these have been other kingfishers??? 

Finally readers may know, but I didn’t until 2 days ago, that the vibrant blue flash and feathers we all associate with kingfisher feathers could be considered to be an optical illusion.  This type of blue is known as a “structural colour”. The feathers contain no actual blue pigment, unlike the orange pigment granules in their breast feathers. The back feathers are actually brown, but are covered in a very thin and intricately arranged transparent layer of tissue which selectively reflects more blue light than any other frequency, so we perceive them as being blue.

Click here to read more if interested, on this quite recently discovered information!

So many thanks indeed again to Colin, for a brilliant bonus to our evening, and any chance of some links to some of the clips, Colin??

In a late change to our programme,  Brinley Watkins is sadly unable to visit us to talk about “Vegetable growing with a twist”. However we’re delighted that Richard Bramley, who’s visited us several times before from local Farmyard Nurseries,  has agreed to come at such short notice and talk to us about  plants to take us through autumn and into winter.  Members will know Richard always gives us a great talk, and he’ll also be bringing along plants for sale. To quote Richard’s words about this talk…

There comes a point in time when, as the gardening year progresses, colour in a lot of gardens begins to wane. Gardens often look lack lustre and many an avid gardener becomes a little despondent and longs for the winter clean up…… Well stop it!! This talk is designed to show us all that the autumn is a season with a plethora of plants that give an absolute riot of colour. As summer flowers fade and the bedding plants pass, the autumn army pushes on with its riots of colour to replace them. There are so many and as sales at the nursery gradually went into the winter recess we massively expanded the autumn contingent to fill this gap. We now stock hundreds of things and this talk will highlight many, but obviously not all, of them.

It is funny how as autumn approaches and the days shorten, with light levels falling, nature steps in and the colour palette of the garden changes, with the fiery yellow, red and orange colours becoming prevalent. Somehow shades that we don’t tolerate in the summer borders become acceptable if not desirable. Subjects covered include Hydrangeas, Asters, Salvias, Schizostylis, Acers and grasses with all sorts of others thrown in! Yet again there may be a mention of our renowned Hellebores.

One of our most popular talks.

Click here for more on Farmyard Nurseries.

September’s talk is on Wednesday September 18th at 7.30 in the Pumsaint hall.

August is often a busy month for many, with holidays and visitors, so the turn out for the August meeting was a little lower than for most meetings. However everyone who came had a great evening and enjoyed a real feast as members rose to the challenge of producing a plate of food to share incorporating leaves and flowers grown in the garden. The pictures give an idea of the imagination and standard of the dishes available, and I’m guessing there will be a fair bit of recipe sharing following on from this.

Finally a reminder that the September meeting will be the last chance to book a space for our trip to Hergest Croft for a visit and guided tour with head gardener Steve Lloyd and his wife Mel, on Thursday September 26 th

This is a special opportunity as well to collect seeds with Steve’s guidance, from some of Hergest’s fantastic range of shrubs and trees.  After what has been a phenomenal year for tree and shrub flowering and seed formation, this really represents a brilliant opportunity for Cothi Gardeners. We can’t guarantee that the weather or colours will be as gorgeous as in these photos, but it will still be a memorable trip.

Cost is £7.50 for the garden entry and tour, and we’ll be having lunch afterwards in the cafe, and they need an idea of numbers,  so do contact Yvonne, asap, if you haven’t already given us your name. We’ll be car sharing and aim to arrive at Hergest at 10.30 a.m, so will also have the gardens pretty much to ourselves, since they only open to the general public at noon.  Friends of members are also welcome to join us, if pre-arranged.