the back garden is only 20 metres from the Ferndown common, not really a common as such, lots of trees, gorse and heather really,
Being near a common is a great joy and privilege. Here we actually face onto a common and approach our house down a rough track. The plus side is certainly the wild life and being able to walk out of the front door onto common land. The minus side is all the weed seeds that blow over our front hedge.
Our common links up with neighbouring commons which stretch for several miles. When we first moved here 53 years ago there were large open bits and some beech woods. Animals grazed, including our horse and donkeys. Now that there is no more grazing, like your common at Ferndown, large areas are reverting so we get gorse and worse, bracken. Gradually the open spaces are becoming woodland. Luckily we are opposite the village cricket and football pitches so this area is kept nice and clear.
The Parish Council and local Common Preservation Society do their best to manage the common and so areas near the village are being kept open. Years ago we used to watch the skylarks rise up from the common in front of us. Now the common is changing its character and it is years since I saw one here. Our most prominent bird here now is the red kite which was successfully reintroduced into this area a few years ago. I think there is a nesting pair in the wood behind us because they are always circling our garden. We occasionally leave pieces of raw meat out on the lawn and they are gone in a flash. I found a dead baby rabbit near the greenhouse and popped that on the lawn. A flurry of wings and it is gone.
We have had nuthatches nest in the garden. It was a treat watching a family of five walk headfirst down the trunk of our old conifer. We also have had a pair of green woodpeckers and a young one picking up ants from around an old trees stump near our kitchen window so there is a lot to look at.
My prize shot was of a brown long eared bat which I found hanging onto one of our old apple trees in broad daylight last July.
I sent the photo to the Bat Conservation Trust and they said they would keep it in their archives.
Eric H
