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What is beheading our primroses?
We have ten clumps of wild primrose in our wildflower beds. This evening I noticed that every clump had been 'attacked' and dozens and dozens of flower heads neatly removed at the joint between stem and the base of the flower. The flowers remain on or near to the clumps. Two clumps have had every flower removed. There is no sign of damage to the petals or any indication of other injury to the stem. I assume that it is probably a bird due to the precision of the 'cut' at the base of the flower head. I have seen the usual wood pigeons, blackbirds, dunnocks and finches around the beds today but no untoward activity. The adjacent planting of cowslips is untouched. Grateful for any thoughts. -- rbel |
#2
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What is beheading our primroses?
On 12 Apr, 19:14, rbel wrote:
We have ten clumps of wild primrose in our wildflower beds. *This evening I noticed that every clump had been 'attacked' and dozens and dozens of * flower heads neatly removed at the joint between stem and the base of the flower. *The flowers remain on or near to the clumps. *Two clumps have had every flower removed. *There is no sign of damage to the petals or any indication of other injury to the stem. *I assume that it is probably a bird due to the precision of the 'cut' at the base of the flower head. *I have seen the usual wood pigeons, blackbirds, dunnocks and finches around the beds today but no untoward activity. *The adjacent planting of cowslips is untouched. Grateful for any thoughts. -- rbel In my young days working in the Parks in Hastings we used to have to thread the polyanthus (that is putting black cotton thread across the beds feom twig to twig stuck into the soik to make a web over the plants). This was done to stop the sparrows from removing all the flowers, they would pick the individual flowers from the stems and use them in some form of display, they could strip a bead in a couple of days, they always left the flowers behind, they didn't take them away. David Hill |
#3
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What is beheading our primroses?
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:03:00 +0200, Dave Hill
wrote: On 12 Apr, 19:14, rbel wrote: We have ten clumps of wild primrose in our wildflower beds. This evening I noticed that every clump had been 'attacked' and dozens and dozens of flower heads neatly removed at the joint between stem and the base of the flower. The flowers remain on or near to the clumps. Two clumps have had every flower removed. There is no sign of damage to the petals or any indication of other injury to the stem. I assume that it is probably a bird due to the precision of the 'cut' at the base of the flower head. I have seen the usual wood pigeons, blackbirds, dunnocks and finches around the beds today but no untoward activity. The adjacent planting of cowslips is untouched. Grateful for any thoughts. -- rbel In my young days working in the Parks in Hastings we used to have to thread the polyanthus (that is putting black cotton thread across the beds feom twig to twig stuck into the soik to make a web over the plants). This was done to stop the sparrows from removing all the flowers, they would pick the individual flowers from the stems and use them in some form of display, they could strip a bead in a couple of days, they always left the flowers behind, they didn't take them away. David Hill Many thanks for this. We don't have any sparrows but there has been a male greenfinch lurking in the wildflower beds the last couple of days - he could be the culprit. The two resident females just sit on the seed feeders and ignore him, so perhaps this has been a forlorn attempt to encourage them. Thinking about it I suppose that alternatively it could be feeding on the very base of the flower - it appears from a little online research that the ovary is located in this position. I will have to collect some of the removed flowers and look at them under a magnifying glass. As a temporary measure we have covered the primroses. -- rbel |
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