Witch o't Woods

Tag: baby birds

A change of Scenery

This week, I’ve come to Ivy Bank Stay-Cation, a farm campsite in the village of Kirkby Malzeard. It’s a great site where I holed up for most of last winter. They won the Vanlife Awards Campsite of the Year a couple of months ago, which was great and has seen a big boost in business for them.

Sometimes, when I stay at the cottage for an extended period, I can go for days and days without speaking to another person. At first, it’s nice. I enjoy spending time alone, and tranquillity is often needed after some of my travel adventures. But after a while, I feel the need to speak to other humans again and access nice hot showers and running water. This is the great thing about living in a campervan. When I get bored or feel the need for adventure, I simply drive off and find somewhere else to settle for a bit.

Ivy Bank has its own little café, and it’s a farm campsite, so there are chickens and sheep and lots of birdlife. It’s tranquil during the week but can get busy at the weekends, especially since they won the award. Having the option to return to the cottage on weekends is great because it means I get the best of both worlds.
My dad also has a season pitch here for his campervan ‘The Whale’, so we often get more time to hang out while I’m here.
I’m friends with the lady who runs the café, so it’s nice to go for coffee and chat some days when I’m feeling the need to be social.

I’m also starting to feel the need for some sun on my face again. The weather in this part of the country has been rubbish recently, so I’m considering going down the country for a while.
However, the next couple of months are full of plans with family and friends, so I won’t be able to head down south until the end of July.

A rare moment of sunshine. That bus over there is where I’ll be hot-tubbing after the long walk with my sister.

Speaking of family adventures, my sister visited the cottage this weekend. We needed to plan for a three-day walk we’re doing in a couple of weeks. So we decided to have a fire night at the cottage to make the plan and catch up, as we’ve not had time to hang out for a while.
We try to fit in a ‘sister night’ once a month or so, but we’re both quite busy with life, so sometimes we go a bit longer than that between meet-ups. But it’s always really nice to just chill and catch up when we eventually get together.

This was the first fire night of the year at the cottage, so we had to gather stones first to make the fire circle.
My dad removed the old fire circle while I was away, healing from my accident. He said it made the lawn easier to mow.
I wanted it in a different place anyway, so it now sits directly in front of the cottage door. Easier to ferry snacks and drinks in and out of the cottage.
Dad was only mildly grumpy that I burned a small patch of grass and that he’ll now have to strim around it when he mows the lawn. He also commented about buying a movable fire pit, so I won’t be surprised if one appears in the garden at some point.
But until then, we have the nice new stone circle.

My sister has bought a new tent for the walking trip we’ll be doing, and so she decided to put it up in the garden and try it out. It’s a pretty nice tent, and despite the heavy downpour in the middle of the night, she stayed sound and dry inside. I’ve ordered the same tent for myself.

My sister making her bed in the new tent, and the nice new fire pit which we built in under ten minutes.

This will be our first multi-day walk, so we’re excited but also a bit worried that we’ll be exhausted from carrying our camping gear. We’re planning to walk from Redcar to Scarborough, stopping at three different campsites along the way.

My sister has done most of the planning. She loves that stuff, and I’m not a planner at all, so it works out well. I need to buy a few extra bits like a small stove and a new sleeping bag.
I bought a sleeping bag from Mountain Warehouse last weekend, but it turned out to be a child-sized one. It didn’t say it was a child’s sleeping bag anywhere on the packaging, and I didn’t notice that it was only 160 cm long until I opened it when I got home and tried to fit inside it.
I’ve already removed the label, so I probably can’t take it back to the shop now, but since it was only £20, I’m not too bothered. I’ll probably give it to my friend’s little girl as they sometimes go on family camping trips. But it does mean that I now have to go and shop for a new sleeping bag again.

The long walk will happen in a couple of weeks, followed by a much-needed hot tub when we return to Ivy Bank campsite, so I’ll be sure to post about how it went.

In other news, I’m happy and sad to report that the baby birds have flown the nest! After shopping, I arrived home on Friday to find only one bird in the nest. When it saw me peering in, it did a little hop and flew across the garden.
It was impossible to grab a picture of them as they flitted around the woodland area in the garden to the left of the cottage. They’re just so fast!
The nest is now empty, and it doesn’t look like the mum is interested in returning to lay a second clutch. So, I will take the opportunity to chop the bush right down before it falls away from the wall again.
I’ll miss my little bird babies, but I think they’ve decided to stay in the forest garden, so at least I can still hear them cheeping, and sometimes I see them looking for worms in the lawn. I’m happy that they all survived and grew up to be healthy adult blackbirds.

The only picture I managed to get of a baby bird after they flew the nest.

Now that I’m at Ivy Bank for the week, I have a new set of birds to watch. There’s a little blackbird here who likes to look under my van for worms, and the chickens make an appearance occasionally to look for wayward crumbs. I like to keep a pot of dried mealworms by the door to entice the birds out for snacks.
Drinking tea with the van door open and watching the wildlife is honestly one of my favourite things about vanlife. I love that as soon as I open the door, I’m basically outside. I feel so much closer to nature and the outdoors this way.

Unfortunately, one chicken was killed by a loose dog last weekend. The campers in question had simply opened their van door at night to let the dogs run free, and one of the dogs decided it fancied a poor chicken. They denied all knowledge the next morning when the chicken was found dead under their vehicle, but the campsite has cameras, so it was easy to see what had happened.
For those of you who own dogs and stay on campsites, please always keep them on a lead. There’s usually a good reason why the campsites ask you to do this.

Until next time.

Fox
xx

June 9, 2025
Leaky Lids and Growing Chicks

The weather this week has been awful, and I find myself wondering where the summer has gone. Of course, this is not unusual for North Yorkshire, but it would be nice to have the top up on the van again.

When I bought a pop-top campervan, I did so with the thought that I would still be able to fit under those annoying car park barriers but also enjoy headroom and being able to stand up while parked.

When the top is up there’s ample headroom and its a different space entirely.

However, the pop-top is not quite the handy solution I thought it would be.

To start with, the thickness of the pop-top lid, plus the solar panel, makes the van still just too high to fit under the barriers. We’re talking a cm. Most annoying.

The other annoying thing about having a pop-top is that it’s like a tent.

In a heavy downpour, the water eventually starts to seep in. It’s also really cold because it has zero insulation. I have a diesel heater, but it feels wasteful to run it with the top up, as the heat just escapes, so you have to run it continuously.

Then there’s the wind. You can’t have the top up in heavy wind because of the risk of it blowing off entirely or, worse, tipping the van over.

There are more windy days than you realise. Trust me.

Even in mild wind, the noise of the tent sides billowing and flapping is quite annoying.

Pair all this with the fact that whoever fitted the pop-top didn’t seal things properly, so rain seeps in through the fixings when the roof is in the up position.

An outside view of Noah with the top popped. And a Cockrill called Barney, because all the best campsites have chickens.

When I first bought the van, the roof leaked even in the down position.

The previous owner drilled holes in the roof to fit the solar panel and didn’t use adequate sealer. In fact, on a couple of the bolts, he didn’t use any at all…

The first time it rained heavily, I suddenly found myself scrambling to find enough pots to catch the water.

That issue was easily solved with some gutter seal and a ladder, but the leaky fixings have so far resisted treatment. I plan to make another attempt at this next month, weather permitting. I’m also planning to reproof the tent material to help with the water seepage.

During the winter, the van spent a lot of time in cave mode. Top down, me moving around like a hunchback inside. I longed for summer when the roof would be up continuously, and I could even sleep on the upstairs bedboard!

Noah in his winter cave state. He was lovely and toasty inside though.

However, I forgot that I live in Britain, so even in the summer, there are a lot of rainy, windy days.

Honestly, I regret my choice, and I will definitely go with a high-roof van next time. I dream of cosy rainy days in the van, walking around upright like a normal person. I watch YouTube videos of van lifers walking around in their high-top vans, and I get the envy.

Such is life.

Anyway, enough about the van; it’s time to move on to more positive news.

The Ugly Babies are growing fast!

There are five chicks in the nest, and they all seem to be thriving. I expected a couple would die off along the way due to insufficient food, but the mum is doing a fantastic job keeping up with five hungry bellies.

When I peek in now, the little eyes are open and staring back at me.

If I make cheeping noises, they all stand up, beaks open and ready for food.

Look how tall they are!

The mother is still not amused with my nosiness but is tolerant.

I forgot how fast the baby birds grow. Soon, they’ll be flinging themselves out of the nest and causing the mum lots of stress, I’m sure.

They almost have all their feathers now. Surely, it’ll only be another few weeks before they learn to fly. I wonder if they’ll hang around the garden or fly off to new territory.

I’ll keep you posted.

Not much else has been going on this week.
I achieved a new front panel for the van to repair the damage from the gate. This Friday, I need to buy the correct paint to spray it.
It’s a long and faffy process and one I could have done without. But that’s van life.
The bad weather has ended my gardening plans, and the cottage has been very cold due to the lack of sun. I’ve been holed up in the van for most of the week with the heater running, although I did have a lovely movie evening in the cottage, in front of the TV with the fire burning, which was nice. Hopefully, the sun will return soon, and garden work can resume.

Fox

xx

June 4, 2025
Ugly Babies

This week, the cottage saw the arrival of some new tenants. The tenants in question will not be paying any rent. Nor will they be helping with the cleaning. By the look of them, all they’re currently capable of is eating and snoozing. Their eyes are still closed, and they don’t have any feathers yet. They are quite ugly, but we don’t tell their mum that.

These are blackbird babies, and they arrive at this time every year. I’m happy to see they’ve continued their tradition of nesting in the briar rose, which grows next to the outhouse door.

The mother sits, eyeballing me through the leaves as I enter and leave the outhouse. She always has a slightly grumpy look, as if my very presence is rude and uncalled for.

Disaster struck a few days ago when the heavy rains came and almost tipped the bush over. This happens quite often as the birds have usually built their nest before I’ve had time to give the bush its summer trim.
The bush was leaning so far away from the wall that the nest was fully exposed. The mother stared at me. Please do something.
So out came the trusty secateurs, and off came the top half of the bush, which is now leaning nicely against the wall again, ensuring that the ugly bird babies are snug and dry.

Is the mother thankful? Hard to tell. She still looks very angry with me. As if it’s my fault that she chose to build her nest on unstable ground.

A few years ago, her one very fat baby threw itself out of the nest. Using gardening gloves very carefully, I untangled it from the thorny bottom of the bush and gently placed it back into the nest. Only for it to jump out again a few hours later.
In the end, I had to just leave it in the flowerbed.
Luckily, the flower bed was relatively safe because I’d added a wire mesh fence to stop the rabbits from digging up the plants.
The fat baby bird had to live in the meshed-off flower bed for weeks until it was finally ready to fly.
The mother, looking jaded, sat on top of the rosemary bush, waiting for the day when the baby could jump out and begin its adult life and she could finally go back to living in a nest and not getting rained on.
Such is life.
Hopefully, the four babies will stay in the nest this year until they’re fully baked, and she’ll have an easier time.

In other news, an accident happened on Saturday when I went to drive through the big gates at the end of the dirt track which leads to the cottage.
A big gust of wind grabbed the gate and swung it closed as I drove through. The angle was just right, so the gate got stuck on the front wing of my van, disintegrating the gate and causing a big dint in the front panel. The driver-side door now doesn’t open fully as the bent panel is in the way, and no amount of banging or bending has resulted in this being any better.

Ouch, poor Noah!

I’ve sourced a new panel (£90) and will pick it up on Friday.
Unfortunately, they don’t come ready painted, so I’ll also have to buy the correct paint and spray it white before I can put it on the van.
I’ll also lose part of the decorative blue van stickers, which I’m not entirely sad about.
I’ve never been keen on the blue stripes, which were badly applied to my van by the previous owner, so this gives me a good excuse to remove them entirely and pick a different type of campervan decor.
Another job on the list.

Driving out of the cottage yesterday, I was surprised to see that the gate had already been replaced by a new, second-hand one. There’s also a nice big chain on it, which I can use to loop over the bush when it’s open, ensuring that the wind can’t blow it closed in future. That was fast work by my landlord!

The end of a good old gate

On Tuesday, I checked the level of my new leisure battery and saw that it hadn’t been charged for four days!
The problem was a loose connection on the negative wire coming from the solar panel.
Credit to the new battery, I hadn’t noticed for four days that my solar wasn’t working. If that had been my old battery, the fridge would have screamed at the end of the first day.

I took the van to my dad, who helped me diagnose the issue.
In the pouring rain, of course.
I had to stand with my purple umbrella propped on top of the open rear door while Dad rooted in the cupboard, trying to access the wires to test them with his meter. Why do these things never go wrong in good weather?

The problem turned out to be with the connector plug. I accidentally pulled on it when grabbing something from the cupboard, and the wire inside the plug is now loose. It works as long as you wiggle it in the right way, but sometimes it stops working again, so I’ll need to order some more plugs.
More money.
Whoever said vanlife was a cheaper living alternative?

In the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of money on van repairs and improvements, and I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to put much more into it.
I’m considering selling this van next year and replacing it with something bigger with more living space. I want to claw back some of the money I’ve spent when I sell Noah, but it’s reaching the point where if I spend any more on him, I won’t be able to.
It’s a tricky balance between being comfortable (he is my house, after all) and being sensible with my money to not lose too much when I come to let go.

My dream is to own a Luton box van. They have the perfect living space, and everything is square, making it much easier to convert.
I’m intimidated by the size, though, and the thought of driving something that huge does cause me some concern. Will I fit into car parks? How much will one of those cost to insure? Will campsites still accept me? Will repair costs be horrific?

I plan to do some research over the next couple of months and then decide between buying a larger panel van or jumping to a Luton. The Luton conversions look so homely, and I’d have all the space I need, so I hope to make it work.

It does mean that I’d be converting the van myself, though, as there are very few ready-made Luton campervans out there, and the ones that do exist are usually over 3.5 tons.
I don’t want to do an HGV licence, so I’ll need to find a 3.5-ton Luton and ensure the conversion doesn’t add too much weight.

It’ll be an exciting project if I go ahead with it, though. I converted my first campervan years ago. It was a lot of fun, and it helped me learn what is necessary and what is overkill when building a conversion.

All of this needs to be put on the back burner for now until I’ve repaired the issues with my current van. The front panel is the first job on the list. But there are other jobs that I need to complete before I can sell.
It will probably take up the rest of the summer, so I see myself spending another winter in Noah.
Spring is the best time to sell a campervan, so it will line up nicely.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to find innovative storage solutions for all of my things and enjoy the space at the cottage while the weather is warm.

Fox
xx

May 25, 2025