Tag Archives: birds

Spring is Sprung the Grass is Riz…

I wonder where dem boidies iz…

Mrs B’s Cut Flower patch starts to take shape

While the debate continues about how long lockdown needs to be in place and we continue our social distancing, one positive thing that is clear around here is that the seasonal timing of this could not have been more convenient.  When one is legally obliged to remain on one’s property for hours – and days – on end, domestic tasks are the unavoidable priority. 

The Midlife Garden has never looked so trim and tidy.  The grass is trim and the edges are sharp.  Borders have been weeded and the seedlings are all in the greenhouse or potted on and hardening off.  Green shoots are everywhere which give some feeling of hope in otherwise desperate times.

Also noticeable in the air is the sound of birdsong.  Someone said that birds are singing more loudly, but that is not it.  Ambient noise from planes, trains and automobiles, has reduced dramatically while birds continue to sing at the same levels.  We can all just hear them more clearly now.  I am not sure how much of a difference this makes in a small village, but we have been sleeping with a window open and have woken to the sound of birdsong every morning these past few weeks.  Sometimes it is the cawing of a crow that has disturbed our slumber, but thankfully it has more often been a blackbird, blue tit or chiffchaff, or, for the last two weeks it has been the lilting song of the blackcap.  The blackcap’s is my favourite birdsong at the moment, which makes me sound a bit geeky.  But hey, I’ve said it now.

The sound of the blackcap is not only enjoyable, it is also a sure sign that spring is in full swing.  I finally saw a couple of swallows, too, near the Old Place on Monday, and in the back garden we have a pair of blackbirds sitting on eggs.  It has meant plans to trim the honeysuckle have been put on hold.  Likewise, any thoughts of stripping the dead leaves off the Cabbage Palm were cancelled as we watched a pair of wrens building their nest there instead.  The decibell levels have risen dramatically in the garden with the wrens, by turns, singing to each other and chitting their alarm at our presence.

It was an alarm call that stopped Mrs B and me the other morning while on the regulation dog walk.  We attempted to locate the orgin of the noise and saw a pair of wrens.  Suddenly, there was the flapping of larger wings and out of the hedge tumbled a sparrowhawk which sat on the grass, looking a little dazed, with its wings outstretched, peering over its shoulder at us.  The bird fixed us with its beady yellow eye before realising social distancing measures were being contravened and flew off.  The wrens survived the assault.

It was enjoyable to witness, but we don’t need to leave our home to be able to appreciate the vigour of the spring birds whether they are on their little wings or not.

Greenhouse starting to fill with seedlings

 

 

The Birds and the Bees

Busy Bee on Allium

“Spring is Sprung
The grass is Riz
I wonder where dem boidies iz…”

Well Spring is definitely Sprung; the grass is needing a weekly mow  and I am delighted to say I know where a lot of dem boidies is, as we have seen plenty in the garden or on our morning walks with The Lab.

As we continue to expand our knowledge of birdsong we now recognise the Blackcap which has apparently been described as the Northern Nightingale.  Hopefully that does not mean that it sings in a strange accent, has suffered high levels of unemployment and has recently deserted its normal electoral preferences by voting for the Brexit Party.  But it does have a song that is indeed mellifluous although I feel it has a bit of a Scandinavian hurdy gurdy lilt to it.  More of an IKEA nightingale, I reckon.

But nothing wrong with that.

Identifying birds will always remind me of The Old Man who was a self-styled (and self-educated) expert on the subject. I will never match his knowledge and I felt his absence the other day when I saw a Wheatear, which I have not seen for years.  My first instinct is still to think of telling TOM about what – for me – is a rare sighting.  I would have loved to have shared the news with him.  We also saw a yellowhammer (bonus points to Mrs B for his one) which is another bird we do not see often and this evokes memories of childhood as I recall my mother teaching me its call of “a little bit of bread and no cheese”, although perhaps these days the Yellowhammer is more likely to be singing “a little non-smart phone and no 4G”.

Elsewhere we have had some significant, albeit brief, visits to the garden – first from a Greater Spotted woodpecker which gorged itself on the peanuts, and then a Sparrowhawk that picked off a small songbird and made off with its prey amid a chorus of angry tweets.  A Jay was another unwelcome visitor that left after a full-on assault from an angry blackbird.

A none-native passer-by appeared the other day when I was drawn outside by what sounded like a rusty wheel being scraped over corrugated iron.  One of the Guinea Fowl from The Manor down the road was sitting on the fence making a racket.  Fortunately, not being a Corbynite Fowl, it came down off the fence.  For the pollsters amongst you, it decided to Leave: much to the disdain of our Labrador.

There have been rumblings about how few swallows there are this year and at the Old Place they are still noticeable by their absence.  I did see one on the wire down the road and have seen house martins around, but swallows are in short supply which is a little worrying.  One migrant we did hear the other morning was a cuckoo, which I have not heard in these parts for some years.  Mrs B and I had a slight disagreement as I tend to talk about cuckoos with the definitive article:  I always hear THE cuckoo, not A cuckoo.  It is the only bird that I can think of which is spoken of in such terms.

Mrs B was not convinced – and she is normally the more definitive one.

Apart from the birds, the bees have also been busy around here.  None have taken advantage of my Bee Brick yet though some might have to as we came across the remains of a bumble bees nest strewn across the road from what I assume was a badger assault.  As we always say: “You can’t stop a badger”.

I was less keen to allow a bigger interloper to make its home in the garden when I found a seriously large hornet humming around the shed.  I jarred up the Big Mother for identification purposes as Mrs B told me we needed to check if it was one of those nasty Asian Hornets which are potentially a danger to our own native bees.  We I-D’ed it as a European Hornet – so I guess it will be gone by 31st October, along with the free movement of labour and last shred of respect for Britain as a land of fairness and good sense.

 

European Hornet. Over here, taking our jobs

 

 

Rewild at Heart

Catkins

Simon Barnes was speaking on Radio 6 the other Sunday morning, promoting about his book “Rewild Yourself: 23 spellbinding ways to make nature more visible”. He has ideas to get everyone to be more in touch with the natural world around us.  One suggestion – to learn the songs of some common birds which – is exactly what Mrs B and I have been doing recently too.  We reckon we have learnt the great tit, song thrush, robin, blackbird and chaffinch so morning strolls are now very much a multi-sensory affair as we listen out for birdsong.

And bird song is not the only sound that attracts the attention at the moment as the countryside reverberates to the drumming of greater spotted woodpeckers on hollow branches, and the overhead thrum of closely packed wings as a flock of starlings arrives at a nearby tree.  Whenever I see starlings I recall one sixth former from a private girls school asking the question “starling….is that anything to do with that bloke in Russia?” The subsequent incredulity of staff and students said it all: thirteen years of school fees for this? Some serious rewilding needed there.

Mrs B and I were very much at one with our natural environment on the morning dog walk this week.  We listened to the song thrush which regularly sings at the top of the same tree each morning;  we watched flocking starlings and spectated as two deer fled the attentions of our hopelessly out-paced labrador.  Potentially a pet dog might have a negative impact on the local ecology, but those deer will be fitter and healthier for the hundred workout sprint they put in before the dog threw in the towel.  Ella proceeded to flush out a couple of pheasants and then a rabbit but she was no nearer catching them than she was the deer.  She might have had a chance with a grey squirrel – but she did not spot that – and fortunately failed to see the badger bumbling which was oblivious to our presence just fifteen yards away.   We put the dog on the lead:  this was one piece of wildlife she would probably do well to avoid.

Back home the (flocking) starlings were trying to get back into their nest sites under the tiles of the house.  I’ve put wire over some of the holes to stop this so now, as I sit at my desk, all I can hear is them scratching away at the bars trying to get in – like an avian Andy Dufresne in reverse.  I would not mind them being there, but we decided to evict them when they started removing loft insulation and depositing large tufts around the garden.

So no more artificial domesticity for them – I am encouraging them to do their own bit of rewilding.

Stile and oak tree

Sun rise over South Somerset