Des Res

It may say something about me, but one of the most exciting moments of my rather mundane life, was having bluetits take up residence in our garden this year. I won't win any awards as wildlife photographer of the year, but I managed to snap this picture this morning. There are six chicks in there, and they all look pretty healthy.

Their mum and dad are the hardest working parents imaginable - they're providing a constant supply of live insects for their babies as they fly back and forth throughout daylight hours. Occasionally they stop for a snack themselves, and I always try to keep a good supply of bird seed, peanuts, suet balls etc. I don't know how soon these little ones will leave the nest, but I would love to see them when they make their first flight.

We get plenty of birds in the garden, sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, collared doves, pigeons, robins, and even have occasional sightings of wrens and thrushes. We also see swallows and swifts overhead.

We've also seen a couple of hedgehogs over the past few weeks, and I have put food out for them occasionally, though I don't think there is any shortage of slugs and snails for them in my garden!

As part of my effort to reduce my impact on the environment was to replace my ancient Flymo with a human powered lawnmower. It's pretty good, quite lightweight and easy to use and it even has a grass box, which means I can either add the grass clippings to the compost bin, or allow it to dry and use it for the rabbits' litter trays.

Be careful what you wish for

I've lived in the same house for over 15 years. All that time, there has been a copper beech tree growing in the garden next door. Although I adore trees, this particular tree has been a problem for my garden, casting very dark shade for half the day and shedding leaves everywhere. Our gardens are very small and not really suitable for trees that potentially can grow to over 100 feet. In the past 15 years it has been "pruned" by previous owners on 4 different occasions and but every time it has grown back even more vigorously. This spring I've been complaining bitterly about it and wishing it gone.


I came home from work on Thursday and was startled by the amount of daylight in my kitchen and discovered that the tree has been lopped off three feet from the ground. I should be happy - but sitting on the fence were the pair of wood pigeons who had been nesting in the tree. I've watched them building their nest for the past few weeks and now they sit forlornly wondering what has happened to their hard work and their babies. Laying on the path I found two broken eggs - I feel so sad for them. I hope there is enough of the summer left for them to find a new tree, build another nest and lay more eggs.



On a more selfish note, whoever cut down the tree trampled all over my garden and broke off my two sunflowers - and this all happened without my neighbours even mentioning they would be cutting down the tree and would need access to my garden. I imagine my poor rabbits were very stressed by the entire experience too!