Читать книгу My Garden and Other Animals - Mike Dilger - Страница 7
ОглавлениеAlthough it may seem glamorous from the outside, a career in television can in reality involve working long days, spending many nights living out of a suitcase and substantial periods away from home and loved ones. In my case, it also brought the new and totally unexpected feeling of missing the garden. In the space of just over a month, I had already spent more time in our new garden than the entire previous decade in my old Bristol garden. So as I arrived back at 1am on 3 March after a long trip away filming bats down caves, I felt like I was coming home in more ways than one, and experienced rising excitement at the thought of seeing both Christina and how the garden had changed over the last few days.
Pulling up outside the house, I had barely got out of the taxi before the garden gloriously delivered, as I picked up the unmistakable hoot of a male tawny owl calling from somewhere down by the stream. Perhaps the most surprising thing, in retrospect, was that I hadn’t already heard a tawny owl up to that point. After all, I was now living in the country, and the patchwork mosaic of woodland and mature gardens along Strode Brook in many ways represented the ideal habitat for this most adaptable of species. Still, better late than never, I thought, as I dragged my sleep-deprived body and over-sized bags into the house, hoping on just this one occasion that the hooting wouldn’t keep me awake!
Due to another filming commitment later the same day, to track down Cornish grey seals, on waking up my first thought was to maximise any spare time in the garden. I was also delighted to discover that while I had been away the substantial order I had placed from a company specialising in bird food and feeders had arrived and awaited my attention on the patio. To someone who gets the most ridiculous satisfaction from feeding his garden birds, the pile of birding paraphernalia just waiting to be unwrapped and distributed around the garden made me feel like my birthday and Christmas had just been rolled into one!
In addition to sacks full of sunflower hearts, peanuts and bird-table mix, I had also ordered a couple of bird feeders especially designed to thwart even the most determined of squirrels. Design number one incorporated a feeder mounted on a pole, with all six feeding ports cleverly encased in a cylindrical mesh cage. This ring of steel would enable tits and finches to pass through but not squirrels or equally domineering wood pigeons. The second design was a regulation hanging feeder but with a Perspex dome attachment, which when placed like a bell immediately above the feeder would prevent the squirrels clambering onto it from the branch above. The key to the successful implementation of this design is that the feeder must be placed high enough to ensure the squirrels can’t jump up to it from the ground, but also far enough away from any other branches to prevent them leaping across, and crucially underneath the dome, from another vantage point.
Not wanting to deny the buntings, chaffinches or robins the opportunity to join in the food-fest, I had also ordered a ground feeding table, complete with an anti-squirrel guard in the form of a mesh-rectangle which covered the table and was then secured to the lawn via pegs. Having stashed all the food in rodent-proof bins in the garage, I then set about taking down my old feeders and replacing them with my lovely new acquisitions. The bell feeder was hung about 6 feet from one of the lower branches of the remaining rowan tree, whilst the caged feeder with accompanying pole was stuck into the lawn close to our shared fence with Andy and Lorraine, in order to entice the birds away from their feeding table and onto to our feeders. Let the battle for (sunflower) hearts and minds begin!
Taking a tour around to admire what was becoming an utterly irresistible garden, I couldn’t help but notice that the natural flora, particularly around the meadow, was already subtly beginning to change. Despite the still occasional appearance of ground frosts in the morning, things had patently become far too tropical for the snowdrops, which were definitely looking past their best. However, without doubt one of the most exciting aspects of botany is that, for most of the year, as one flower fades another species will often quickly take centre stage by moving into bloom, and in this case that plant was the primrose.
From the Spanish prima rosa, or the ‘first rose of spring’, the primrose’s name can be somewhat misleading, as of course it’s not related to the rose but is a member of the primrose family itself. If I were to choose my top ten favourite British wild flowers, then the primrose would comfortably sail into the top five. It is not just about the flowers, which I have always thought emanate from the leafy basal rosette like a large dollop of clotted cream, but, just like the chaffinch’s song, it represents a gateway to my favourite season of the year: spring. With the species name vulgaris, translated as ‘common’, this plant is paradoxically nowhere near as abundant as it used to be. Overpicking and a loss of suitable habitat are the prime reasons behind this plant’s disappearance from large swathes of our countryside. That would not be the case in this garden, though, as the primroses would be removed over my dead body. They were there for us and the wildlife to enjoy.
Christina joined me for an hour’s work in the garden, before I had to disappear away again in the evening, and we rolled up our sleeves and got stuck into the front garden, as the border in front of the house, having now been weeded, prepared and fertilised, was at last ready to be planted up. We had planned for the border to be filled with a combination of plants from a variety of sources: those which had sneakily been dug up from our previous garden and brought with us, as well as recently purchased perennials and some shrubs from our new garden which could still be saved. Being the artistic type, Christina wanted to trial the potted plants at varying locations around the border, to try and work out what would look best where. ‘Having spent so much time, effort and money on these plants, it would be a shame not to create a lovely mixture of colour, texture and pattern.’ One thing I have learnt over the years with my wonderful girlfriend is not to even attempt to assert my opinion when it comes down to who has the last say on colour or positioning schemes – she just does this kind of thing better. The result of this game of Chinese ‘plant’ chequers meant that, as the light began to fade, the only plants we had managed to put in the ground that afternoon were a couple of large hydrangeas carefully positioned to cover the gas meter, and a climbing honeysuckle that would eventually mask the ugly cables emanating from our newly installed satellite dish.
As we began to pack up, my thoughts had already turned away from arranging flower borders to my paid work and the pre-departure checklist for filming down in Cornwall. BLACKBIRD! I couldn’t believe my ears, for the first blackbird of spring was singing from somewhere down the road. A scan of the most obvious vantage points quickly revealed the silhouette of a male in mid-performance on the TV aerial of Number Six, with a salmon-pink sunset as a backdrop to make the moment even more special.
In a recent poll by the National Trust to find the nation’s favourite songbird, the humble blackbird trounced all the opposition with a whopping 45 per cent of all votes cast. In summary, this is a song that means an awful lot to an awful lot of people. I’ve personally always felt that the song has a beautiful, melancholic sound to it, and if I were to indulge myself further by giving the bird an accent, then it would have to be that lazy but mellow drawl easily encountered in any of the southern states of the USA: ‘Y’all come back now yer hear!’ it seemed to be singing to us!
The impact of this most natural of symphonies on our brains cannot be overestimated. Recent studies have shown that the psychological impact of birdsong can affect anything from our mood to our levels of attention and creativity. I have no idea how researchers are able to calibrate these effects, but as the blackbird belted out its virtuoso performance, while Christina and I listened enraptured with our arms around each other, all I know is that it made us both feel content.
The weekend finally brought a break to my hectic work schedule, meaning it would also free up some time to indulge in my two new favourite activities: watching the wildlife coming and going in our garden, and planting lots of lovely plants. Taking up my preferred perching point by the landing stairs window, and with the two essentials for any early morning birding session – my binoculars and a cup of coffee – I was particularly keen to see how the new feeders were being received. I had barely taken my first sip of coffee before a flash of pink and an even tinier flash of blue betrayed the presence of a pair of jays playing hide and seek through the hazels on the wooded bank.
Historically an arboreal bird most at home in the wooded countryside, the jay is one species which has seemingly developed much more catholic tastes over the last few decades. As a result of extensive planting schemes in many urban and suburban areas, combined with the fact that urban pollution levels are now at their lowest levels since before the Industrial Revolution our towns and cities are now a much more attractive proposition to birds like the jay. In fact, so prevalent have they become in Bristol’s suburbs, for example, that I considered jays to be relatively common visitors to the diminutive urban garden attached to my previous flat. Despite having made the bold decision to come and live alongside us, the jay has still retained that nervous and skittish demeanour and none of the cockiness or swagger of, say, house sparrows or wood pigeons. This introverted nature means that the jay will always be one of those birds that leaves you wanting more, and such was the case here, as the pair all too briefly melted away into the undergrowth.
Nevertheless, I was particularly pleased officially to add this bird to the garden list, as it was the one species that Christina had seen in the garden the week before, but I hadn’t yet managed to catch up with. Knowing that I wouldn’t have been happy until I had seen them for myself, Christina had enjoyed exploiting this fact by winding me up, or in birding parlance ‘gripping me off’. ‘How can you have the audacity to actually call yourself a birder when you haven’t even managed to see as common a bird as a jay in your own back garden?’
In a number of ways, even more pleasing than the brief appearance of the jays were the large numbers of greenfinches which were constantly crowding around the bell feeder in the rowan tree. The greenfinch is a garden bird familiar to even those with little more than a passing interest in our feathered friends, but it is also a species that since 2005 has been so heavily targeted by a parasite-induced disease called trichomonosis that populations are thought to have plummeted by as much as a third in those areas affected by outbreaks. Living in the bird’s upper digestive tract, this dastardly parasite’s action is to slowly block the bird’s throat so it is unable to swallow food, ultimately causing a long, lingering death by starvation. While the parasite can’t survive for long outside the host, it can unfortunately be easily transmitted between birds via saliva, which will always accumulate at communal feeders and drinking areas. This tragically means that the disease cruelly targets those garden owners who ironically care most about their birds by regularly feeding them.
So prevalent has this disease become in the southwest over the last few years that, for me, seeing what was a once abundant bird has now become a notable event. But as I watched the constant flickering of yellow and green around the feeder, I was struck with the thought that maybe our new garden could just conceivably be located in a healthy enclave, meaning we might be spared the ravages of this pernicious disease. I could only hope that this refreshing sighting was one that I would continue to enjoy.
Whilst scanning through the hordes of greenfinch, my gaze latched onto a pair of somewhat more uncommon finches, in the form of a couple of siskin. So excited was I at this find, that my ‘birding Tourette’s’ kicked in once again, causing me to suddenly shout, ‘Siskin!’ involuntarily to nobody in particular, and certainly not to Christina, who was still doing a fine impression of someone keen to spend the whole day in bed. This smaller cousin of the greenfinch has a curious distribution in Britain, with most individuals preferring to breed in Welsh, Scottish and northern English coniferous forests, before electing to spend their winter holidays in the milder climes of southern England. Having never before seen siskin in any Bristol urban garden since moving to the southwest in 1999, this was one of those winter visitors I was secretly hoping would at some point have turned up in our new garden before disappearing back up north for the breeding season.
I hate to be sexist when talking about birds, but I’m afraid that the male siskin is just so much more attractive than his washed-out female counterpart. Adult males will generally undertake a complete moult between July and November, but it takes until early the following spring for the pale feather tips to abrade sufficiently for the gorgeous back cap and bib to be revealed – and boy, this specimen was looking pretty dapper right now!
Of course the cast of garden characters wouldn’t be complete without the presence of a Panto Villain, played so ably as ever by the grey squirrels. Unlike the entire month of February, where they had been given free rein to bully and monopolise the feeding stations whenever they felt hungry, free and easy hand-outs were now proving somewhat more difficult to procure thanks to the addition of my two new feeders. I must also admit to having given myself a childish chuckle of delight on seeing two different squirrels unsuccessfully trying to clamber up the pole on which the caged feeder had been mounted. Like most campaigns it wasn’t going all my own way, as I watched what looked to be a still juvenile squirrel, having squeezed through the anti-squirrel bars covering the ground feeder, busily filling his cheeks with food intended for others. Still, I couldn’t deny that a better balance between the birds and squirrels had now been achieved.
Christina having surfaced, after a quick breakfast on the patio we set about our designated task of finishing the planting up of the herbaceous border in the front garden. Having decided on a floral arrangement that she would be happy with, trowels were wielded as planting began. It being very early in the season, a lot of our recently purchased plants were still pretty small, which meant that they were cheap to buy and easy to plant, so it was hardly arduous work as we happily plonked in twos and threes each of foxgloves, lupins, Jacob’s ladders and penstemons. Having soon exhausted our supply of recent purchases, we then moved on to the more established lavenders, salvias and fuchsias which we had potted up from our old flat and brought with us. Anyone who has ever put in plants knows that it is hardly rocket science, so after a sufficient-sized hole had been dug, it was furnished with a few granules of slow-release plant-food (nick-named ‘Magic Balls’ in our household), before the plant was inverted, pot removed and then placed in its carefully excavated hole. An optional extra of a small amount of mulch was then added to give it a good start.
Not for the first time, while watching Christina plant away I was taken aback by how quickly her green fingers had developed. True, her father and uncle were fine gardeners in their own right, so there must have been a genetic element to the instinctual way she seemed to have with plants. But it was not just how she handled them; she had not only managed to pick up the Latin names of many of the plants in double-quick time, but many of their specific and quirky needs too. I love it when a hidden talent surfaces.
We had decided beforehand that plants for the garden would be chosen with three criteria in mind. Firstly, and most importantly for Christina, they needed to look good; whether through imposing foliage or impressive sprays of flowers was of secondary concern. The second point, and the most important factor for me, was that the plants purchased (wherever possible) should be high nectar and pollen producers, to ensure a bountiful selection of invertebrate pollinators which would in turn attract predators such as spiders, birds and insectivorous mammals. Thirdly, neither of us wanted the effort of having to deal with any delicate, wilting types that were considered high maintenance, so only those plants robust enough to withstand the rough and tumble nature of life in our garden would be represented. As we stood back to see our handiwork, it had to be said that the border currently looked far from the finished article, with the discrete clusters of chlorophyll surrounded by a sea of soil. But before we knew it, the days would soon begin both to lengthen and become warmer, triggering the plants into a sustained period of growth, culminating in a riot of colour as the flowers opened up for passing trade.
Having planned to spend the afternoon shopping for various garden-related paraphernalia, we were just at the point of packing up tools when my eagle-eyed partner noticed a bird whose identity she was unsure of soaring way above the garden, causing me to sprint inside to get my binoculars for a better look. On closer inspection my initial guess was correct, as I was able to confirm that we were watching a male displaying sparrowhawk!
Birds of prey, or raptors, can often be incredibly tough to identify for novice and expert alike, as many look superficially similar and are rarely seen at close quarters. But when a sparrowhawk is clearly seen out in the open, its relatively small size and distinctive ‘flap, flap, sail’ way of flying are usually enough to ensure a confident identification. Having said that, the only time when the sparrowhawk deviates from this more usual way of flying tends to be in early spring when love is in the air. Usually conducted above the nest site, the spring courtship flight sees the male flapping his wings much more slowly than normal, almost as if in an exaggerated fashion, which is then often combined with a narrowing of the tail and a sticking out of the pale undertail-covert feathers. This slow-flapping flight, if the observer is lucky, will then conclude with a breathtaking series of peregrine-esque stoops designed both to demarcate his territory and impress his potential mate.
As we watched what must have been our resident male sparrowhawk go through this skydancing routine, and irrespective of what his prospective mate thought, he certainly impressed us. If the pair did indeed settle down locally, and I for one hoped they would, then both male and female would also over the breeding season be making a slightly different impression with all the tits and finches currently flocking to my garden for food too!
Without doubt one of the best features that any self-respecting wildlife gardener should find room for is a compost heap. Obviously this makes getting rid of household vegetable and garden waste a piece of cake, rather than going to the extra effort of sending it off for somebody else to make a profit from or, worse still, using it as land-fill. There is also something amazing about the miracle of decomposition; a process whereby potato peelings, banana skins and apple cores can be broken down, only to be reconstituted back into the most wonderful fertilizer with which to feed your herbaceous borders.
We too were keen on making our own compost rather than spending our hard-earned cash on bags of it from the local garden centre, but the other reason why I wanted one was because they are hugely important wildlife habitats in their own right. All manner of animals are drawn to compost heaps because all that warm, rotting plant material provides a habitat which is mostly absent from gardens.
Ask most knowledgeable gardeners which animals are most commonly associated with compost heaps and hopefully the majority would respond with the answer – reptiles. This heat-loving group simply adores the warmth and protection offered, evidenced by an urban wildlife survey recently conducted around Bristol which revealed that those gardens with a compost heap were twice as likely to play host to resident slow-worms as those without. Compost heaps are also pretty much the only place in a garden (unless you have a huge pond) where you have any chance of catching up with a grass snake, as this is often where females choose to incubate and hatch their eggs. In fact, on the two occasions I have been lucky enough to have seen this wonderful and enigmatic snake in a garden setting, it had converted the heap to a home.
While not every garden compost heap will be able to double up as a natural vivarium, all heaps can be guaranteed to attract a much wider array of invertebrates, such as beetles and woodlice, than would otherwise be found in a sterile, tidy garden where a compost heap would be considered an unsightly eyesore. So, with all this in mind, and aware of the fact that the wood from the dismantling of both the fence and pergola was still sitting there just begging to be used, I had decided that in the spirit of recycling I would try to use the timber to build a couple of compost bins.
Of course, on the surface this grand plan seemed a quite brilliant way to improve the wildlife potential of the garden without either spending much money or wasting any more of the world’s timber resources, but the biggest obstacle to the successful completion of this task was that, in a nutshell, I’m terribly unpractical. As all the Dilgers hail from an academic background, it’s safe to say that, like my mother, father and two brothers, the practical or technical genes seem largely to have skipped a couple of generations, and like the rest of my family I’m much better at talking the talk, rather than walking the walk! In many ways what makes this even more hilarious is that I’m actually considered the most practical one, simply because of my ability to wire a plug or use a drill to mount a picture – we are that bad! A plug or a picture was one thing, but would I have the ability to cope with building something as technically demanding as a couple of compost bins? Well, we would have to see.
Having found a timber design for compost bins from an old Geoff Hamilton gardening book and having been promised the loan of an electric saw from Christina’s father (did he realise what he was promising?), the only bit of kit I now needed to begin the big build was a work bench, hence the visit that afternoon to our local DIY supermarket. As a person who has only recently realised the difference between a plum-bob and a plum-duff, I have always felt a touch intimidated going into these large DIY stores, where the staff have a habit of making you feel terribly inadequate, by perversely responding to your tentative question with another question they know you’ll struggle to answer. However, today was different as I knew exactly what I wanted; I was after that iconic tool of the trade which has done more to convey rugged manliness than any beer, aftershave or pair of jeans could ever do … I was after a Black & Decker Workmate!
Unaware that there was more than one design of Workmate, but not wanting to enquire further about the precise technical differences of each model without sounding stupid either, I did what I usually do in this situation, which is to go for the middle of the range. Christina, who incidentally does come from both practical and academic stock and so would have been a useful sounding board with my workbench dilemma, had taken herself off to the gardening section to feed her plant-buying addiction and so was unavailable for a quick consultation. Nevertheless, I felt both confident and ever so slightly thrilled at the fun I would have with my new purchase … ‘Mike Dilger, naturalist, broadcaster and compost bin builder’!
The following day should have brought the promise of more fun and frolics in the garden for both of us, but instead it started off with a big argument. Like all disagreements it had begun with something small; with us arguing as to where the pond would be located, but this had merely been the stalking horse for a much larger bone of contention, namely what we actually wanted the garden to represent.
In our sketched plan we had effectively decided to divide the garden in two, with the half closer to the house representing the more cultivated and formal part of the garden, while the other half alongside the wooded bank would be left more au naturel with a screen of apple trees marking the border between the two sections and effectively operating as green curtains through to the secret nature reserve.
While we agreed that a pond was something we both wanted, the only issue was whether I would lose a large chunk of my meadow for the pond to be situated in the nature reserve, or whether Christina would have to sacrifice a site closer to the house which she had earmarked as a potential seating area. The crux of my argument consisted of why we would go to all the considerable effort of digging a pond if we couldn’t even observe what would be attracted to the feature due to it being hidden behind the trees, while Christina countered that the area where I wanted to locate the pond was one of the very few positions which would also comfortably accommodate a table and chairs in the sun.
Once again, our beloved birds abruptly ended the argument, as above our shouting match I suddenly heard a siskin in the birch tree above our heads! The argument stopped instantly as we both fully understood this was not a moment to be squandered, but one to be savoured. I suppose the siskin’s song is like a cross between the wheezy greenfinch song and the chaotic, staccato rhythm of a sedge warbler, and to someone like me, whose favourite aspect of natural history has to be birdsong, it was a very special moment. Unlike the blackbirds and chaffinch which had already begun singing to hold territories, this siskin would soon be leaving our garden to raise a family elsewhere and so I suspect was probably just putting in a bit of practice in order to hit the ground running on his chosen breeding ground up in Scotland or Scandinavia.
Deciding that a compromise could easily be worked out, we elected instead to use our time more usefully by making a cuppa and enjoying the garden rather than arguing about it, so the rest of the morning was spent sitting on the patio with our coats and coffee, as we watched early spring unfurl across our garden. Although the siskin had by that time left to practise elsewhere, the sun coming out had patently given other birds sufficient stimulus to join in the throng, and so in quick succession we were also treated to a chorus of dunnock, great tit and chaffinch all competing for both air space and territory in and around our garden.
Despite early spring undeniably having already begun, food was obviously still thin on the ground in the wider countryside as greenfinch, chaffinch and siskin were still fraternising the feeders in large numbers. In addition to the normal suspects, three reed buntings were happily feeding away on my ground feeder, having decided that they weren’t quite ready to desert the lush oasis of our garden for the reed beds just yet. Continuing the raptor theme from the previous day, we were also thrilled to spot three buzzards wheeling away on the thermals some 200 feet above the garden whilst making their mewing ‘peee-uu’ display call. Now vying with the sparrow-hawk as Britain’s commonest bird of prey, the buzzard was a bird I never saw as a child due to draconian persecution tactics, but thanks to the complete protection of all birds of prey, it has made a sterling comeback and seemed a particularly regular fixture amongst the West Country’s cast of wild characters.
Watching wildlife is one of those lovely hobbies which rewards the time and effort you put in, and as we sat there being warmed by the sun’s rays, in addition to all the birds going about their business, another somewhat smaller creature that had just emerged from hibernation was also buzzing about. At this time of the year, bumblebees are easy to sex as it is only the queens who are equipped to survive the perils of winter, the rest of her colony having perished in the first frosts of the previous autumn. In a life cycle that beggars belief, the queen, having already been fertilised by the previous year’s males, then stores the sperm throughout winter. Upon emerging from hibernation the following spring, her first priority is to immediately replenish the body fats lost during the winter with the pollen and nectar from any suitable early-flowering plants. Using this food to develop her ovaries, it is only then that she will be in a position to fertilise the eggs. With the eggs ready to be laid, her next task is to find a suitable location for the nest to initiate her new colony, explaining why many people in early spring report bumblebees seemingly behaving erratically as they investigate nooks and crannies in walls and holes in lawns. All the queens are doing is looking for somewhere to set up home.
We leapt up to take a closer look, and we could clearly see her crawling around the bottom of the wisteria looking for a mouse-hole or any suitable cavity, and that she was a buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), one of the commonest of our bumblebees and also one of the earliest to emerge from hibernation. Bumblebees in Britain have had a tough time over the last 30 years, with two species having become extinct and around half the remaining species being recorded as in serious decline. Unfortunately it is no coincidence that during this period large swathes of our countryside have fundamentally changed from being places teeming with wildlife, to sterile monocultures with little space for the wild flowers and their attendant insects. However, throughout this dark, depressing period of environmental degradation, a ray of light has been created by gardens. Due to the extended flowering seasons gardeners often create and the bountiful sources of nectar and pollen on offer from all the different blooms, gardens have taken on the mantle of becoming extremely important habitats for these beleaguered insects. How appropriate then that our first bumblebee sighting of the year should be in the garden. Our planned trip to the garden centre that afternoon would now also need to include the purchase of a few more early-flowering, bee-friendly plants, as a garden can’t be called wildlife-friendly, unless it is full of the sound of buzzing bumbles!
Due to work commitments it was not until the following Friday that I was presented with any further opportunity to get my hands dirty in the garden. I downed my breakfast even faster than usual before bidding goodbye to Christina, who was off to work, for the whole day had been earmarked for a particularly manly job – commencing compost bin construction! But even before I would be able to start the measuring and sawing, the first task would be to actually build the Workmate, as it was only available for purchase in flat-pack form.
One of the prime reasons why historically I have tried to avoid shops like IKEA is that I hate building flat-packed furniture from instructions. To someone like me for whom DIY is a dirty acronym, the accompanying instructions can be the stuff of nightmares; these awful leaflets always assume dangerous levels of competence, are invariably poorly written and often contain diagrams that seem to bear no resemblance to the product you have just purchased. Despite the instructions being more of a hindrance than a help (Black & Decker please note), it was not until lunchtime – yes, a full three hours later – that at last I was ready to begin sawing up the timber.
Despite Mr Hamilton’s design initially looking complicated, it was easier to follow than I had expected, and with Christina’s father’s circular saw cutting through the timber like a hot knife through butter, I was soon giving the wood from the pergola and fence a second lease of life as precisely measured planks. With it being such a lovely, clear day my top half was soon stripped down to nothing more than a T-shirt as a result of the exertion – what a manly occupation compost-bin building was! Geoff’s design had incorporated wooden planks both on the back and either side, with small, vertical wooden battens at the front that would keep in place removable slats, which could then be slid out when the compost either needed to be turned or was ready to be removed and then used on our, as yet, nonexistent flower beds. The roof would then simply consist of a large piece of marine plywood to be purchased at a later date. The thinking behind the building of two bins was that it enabled one bin to be maturing while the other one was being filled with household waste and garden trimmings.
Standing back after a couple of hours, I was stunned with my progress. I had turned a large pile of partly rotten timber into a neat stack of perfectly sawn planks, and without any incidents either! I had also achieved something in my own mind of much more significance – I had put to bed my silly notion that I simply wasn’t up to anything more difficult than the simplest of practical tasks. There was also a huge feel-good factor associated with re-using and recycling rather than my usual course of action, which would have been to throw away the old timber then solve the ‘conundrum’ by buying something pre-constructed in a Thai sweatshop. Making my own was cheaper, better on the environment, would probably function better than anything I could have purchased in a store and had proved fun to build too. The only downside was that because the noise of the saw had driven everything elsewhere for the day, it had been the one occasion where I had neither seen nor heard any wildlife of note. I was sure they’d be back the following day, though.
There was only so much that could be achieved with two pairs of hands at such a crucial time of the year, so Christina had asked her family in Bath if they fancied turning up in force to help out on the Sunday. Kindly accepting our offer of a free lunch in return for a day’s labour, the work crew had agreed to arrive by mid-morning, giving Christina and I time to scribble down a quick list as to who would do what and, equally crucially, who would work with whom.
Three main jobs were targeted; these were primarily tasks which really had to be undertaken in winter so could not be delayed any further, but they were also activities that could be completed with a day’s hard graft. Firstly Christina and her technically minded father Graham would tackle the most technically demanding job of putting up trellis along the fascia of the garage and re-training the old wisteria and clematis back to some degree of order after their years of neglect. Christina’s sister Katy and her boyfriend Andy would be given what we considered to be the most fun job, which involved the planting of three apple trees and a damson purchased from Simon at the excellent local Chew Valley tree nursery. And finally Christina’s brother Jon and I would get stuck into the most physically demanding task of digging a trench along the fence line between our garden and Marjory and Dennis’s, into which we would be planting a combination of native whips, with the ultimate aim of producing a mixed-species hedgerow.
The team didn’t just bring manpower with them, but the weather too, as their arrival heralded the disappearance of the early morning fog to reveal wall-to-wall blue sky, with little or no wind to upset the status quo. Cracking straight on after a quick cuppa to admire the new sofa Christina and I had just bought (it was not just about the garden), the posse split up into their respective teams, to receive instructions where necessary, before tooling up and getting stuck in. Given the physical aspect of all the jobs, it wasn’t long before all team members were peeling off fleeces and coats as the mantra ‘cast no clout, fore May be out!’ was also cast aside. Most importantly of all, it was delightful to see how much everyone was enjoying the work – clearly audible in between the grunts created by the swinging of the pick-axe or the whine from the drill was the laughter from chirpy banter. There was also a fair amount of spade-leaning too as each group took regular breaks to check up on the progress elsewhere.
The jobs were nevertheless far from plain-sailing, as what we thought initially might have been the most straightforward task ended up being the most problematic when Andy suddenly hit concrete while digging the hole for the first apple tree. Andy’s misfortune had been to hit the subterranean concrete foundation of the furthest washing-line pole from the house. On evaluating the problem, three options seemed immediately available – plant the tree in the smaller hole regardless of the block; move the tree to a different location; or keep the tree where we originally wanted it by removing the concrete. Option one was quickly discarded as we decided that planting the tree next to the block would have severely restricted its root system, and the second option soon proved equally untenable as moving the sapling would have placed it far too close to the other apple trees, ultimately giving them insufficient space in which to thrive. The only feasible option left was also the most exhausting one – the block would have to come out.
Having taken Andy a mere 20 minutes to dig the initial hole, little did we know that it would then take a further 60 minutes to clear the soil sufficiently from around the block to allow for its removal. It was not until four of us had finally managed to lever the concrete cube out of the hole and onto the path that we could fully appreciate why Andy had struggled. Measuring close to a yard across, the huge unearthed lump of concrete would have perhaps been more useful as one of the foundation stones for a nuclear reactor rather than just the footing for a washing-line pole. The one plus side of forming a huge crater in the middle of the lawn was that it provided the perfect place to dispose of the wheelbarrow loads of excess soil that Jon and I had spent most of the morning generating whilst digging the hedge-line trench.
With all four holes finally dug, the trench prepared and the trellis up, we stopped only briefly for an al fresco chicken stir-fry lunch, before I had to crack the whip again, as plenty more still had to be done before we lost the light. However, with most of the hard graft already completed, the second half of the work programme would be the fun part, as it was time to plant and prune.
Following the tried-and-tested methodology for hedgerow planting, the trench Jon and I had dug was back-filled with a mixture of compost and the soil we had already dug out. The whips, which we had also purchased from the local nursery in a job lot with the fruit trees, were then planted in two rows, half a yard apart and in staggered fashion, creating a zigzag pattern. As by far the most whips we had purchased consisted of the cheaper hawthorn, with a smaller mix of field maple, blackthorn, spindle and alder buckthorn, Graham had the excellent idea of planting the back row with pure hawthorn and then alternating the front row with the other pricier species.
It was inevitable during the morning’s work that one or two of the primroses just pushing their heads above the surface would be in the wrong place, but, wherever possible, any plants in the way were carefully dug up and then relocated to a safer place elsewhere in the meadow. It was not just the primroses that were flowering; in addition to at least half a dozen varieties of daffodils randomly cropping up all over the garden, small golden rafts of another of my favourite early spring wildflowers were in full bloom too. Overlooked by many as nothing more than a small and inconsequential early-flowering buttercup, the lesser celandine is anything but, figuring heavily as it does in the writings of surely one of our most celebrated poets, William Wordsworth. Probably best known for his ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ poem, where he waxes lyrical about daffodils, his favourite plant was actually the lesser celandine, which he honoured with an entire poem that begins thus:
There is a flower, the lesser celandine
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain
And, the first moment that the sun may shine
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!
So adoring had Wordsworth been of this flower that it was decided after his death that the plant would be carved on his tombstone, but it seems the chap commissioned to carry out the work was no botanist and actually carved a greater celandine by mistake. To make matters worse, the greater celandine is not even related to its lesser namesake, but is a member of the poppy family instead – a grave mistake! In Wordsworth’s poem he is of course spot-on when describing how the lesser celandine tends to be a bit of a fair-weather creature, only bothering to unfurl its petals properly when the sun comes out. And today was such an example, with the gorgeous weather having encouraged the flowers to emerge from the massed ranks of kidney-shaped leaves, to create the most wonderful golden splashes in amongst a field of green. But for me personally, he missed out the most interesting quirky feature of this plant, which is how all the flowers operate like miniature satellite dishes as they faithfully track the progress of the sun across the sky – this plant is in essence a botanical representation of me, a dedicated sun worshipper!
The planting of whips was of course kids’ play, and involved no more than using a spade to create a slit trench into which the roots of the sapling were carefully placed before a boot was delicately applied to bed the plant properly in. So with Jon starting at one end and me at the other, in less than half an hour we successfully managed to plant ten yards of mixed-species hedge between the rear of the garage and the wooded bank – all we needed to do then was to water the whips and wait another decade for the hedge to mature and it would be job done!
Back over where Andy and Katy had been busy toiling away, the planned junction between formal garden and nature reserve had in the meantime been transformed into an orchard! Their last remaining job was to drive in the supporting stakes, at an angle of 45 degrees to avoid any damage to the root-balls, and also along a southwesterly orientation to give the trees the best possible support against the predominant prevailing wind direction.
The formation of a mini-orchard was something that Christina and I had both been keen on. Due to a combination of there nowadays being little room for small orchards in modern farming and the fact that supermarkets have been reluctant to sell homegrown apples, more than half of all our British orchards have disappeared since 1970. This is particularly shameful when you consider what hugely important wildlife habitats they have become, as orchards will often be the best places to find a wide range of wildlife, from the lesser-spotted woodpecker to rare beetles and mistletoe. Probably as a result of the mild and wet climate found in the West Country there was also a strong tradition of growing apple trees in all the counties, spanning in an arc from Herefordshire and Worcestershire all the way to Somerset. This local long-standing regional association with the apple can also easily be verified by a visit to any public house within the area, as is this is probably the one region in the UK where cider drinkers outnumber ale-drinkers! With all this in mind it would have been criminal not to do our bit both to halt the decline of the orchard and to continue supporting a strong, local heritage. There would also hopefully be the small added benefit of a few apples for both us and the wildlife to share too!
Continuing our theme of buying local wherever possible, Christina and I had selected the three apple trees from three different varieties with both a regional heritage and a similar pollination group. With luck, the garden would be graced with ‘Scrumptious’, ‘Cheddar Cross’ and ‘Discovery’ apples for decades to come, starting with this autumn.
Last but not least, the technically adept pairing of Graham and Christina had done a marvellous job of erecting the trellis to hide huge sections of pebble-dashed garage wall. With something for the wisteria and clematis to be finally pegged back to, loppers and secateurs could at last be ruthlessly wielded to give them a radical short back and sides – with such unruly plants, you often have to be cruel to be kind!
With all the tools stowed away, Christina then brought ice-creams for the workers out of nowhere as we wandered around admiring our efforts. Thanks to the willing posse and the clement weather it had been our most productive day so far, and the transformation to the garden nature reserve was at last well on its way.
With Christina now back at work and my filming schedule of back-to-back trips still a month away, I was keen to capitalise on our good start by filling any spare time with garden chores, and the following Tuesday was one such opportunity to initiate phase two of the compost bin construction job. With my now trusty Workmate, Graham’s borrowed saw and in the most beautiful weather, I soon made short work of sawing up the last of the recycled wood ready for the planks to be nailed together. Suddenly realising that a trip to the DIY store would be necessary to buy larger nails and screws than I had planned for, I decided temporarily to shelve the completion of the bins to provide some post-planting TLC to the apple and damson trees planted by Andy and Katy. Care for a tree should not stop the moment that it is placed in the ground, as the vulnerable bedding-in time is in many ways just as crucial to the tree’s survival as to how it was planted in the first place. So with this in mind, all four trees were given a good soaking, and then in turn had their bases furnished with a mulch of bark chippings to suppress any weed growth, while they settled in. I was just down on my hands and knees finishing up the mulching when I suddenly caught a flash of sulphur-yellow out of the corner of my eye. Spinning round, I was ecstatic to see a male brimstone butterfly as it flew along the newly installed hedgerow which Jon and I had only planted a couple of days previously!
The first butterfly sighting of the year is always a red-letter day for me, testified by the fact that for the rest of the year I will always be able recall where I was and what I was doing when the butterfly made that appearance. I can remember bizarrely, for example, that in 2010 my first butterfly of that year was another brimstone seen flitting past a lay-by off the A1 in Hertfordshire; however, this year my first sighting would be doubly special, as for the record it was spotted in my own garden on 15 March at about 11.40am!
Being one of the few British species capable of overwintering as an adult, the long-lived brimstone is invariably the first butterfly of the calendar year to be recorded on the wing as the nomadic males emerge early from hibernation to begin fluttering around woodlands and along hedgerows in their annual search for virgin females to mate. The bright yellow-coloured brimstone was certainly well known amongst the earliest butterfly collectors, with some people still maintaining that the word ‘butterfly’ is nothing more than a shortening of the brimstone’s old name of ‘butter-coloured fly’. The paler-coloured and more scarcely seen females are also incredibly fastidious as to where they lay their eggs, only choosing either purging buckthorn or alder buckthorn. With this knowledge in mind, the sole reason why I had picked alder buckthorn as one of the constituents of our mixed-species hedgerow was to try and attract the butterfly into the garden – what I didn’t expect was for it to take a mere 48 hours. This was more coincidence than design, I suspected!
Buoyed by my butterfly sighting and having collected the large nails I needed, I was soon straight back onto the bins assembly, which slowly but steadily began to take shape with the addition of each plank to the corner posts. Despite the near-constant noise interruption created by the sound of hammer on nail-head, I was surprised to still be able to count at least six different bird species singing from in or around the garden. Chaffinch, greenfinch, dunnock, blackbird, robin and wren could all be heard staking their claim for the chunk of real estate which also happened to be our garden – and they were most welcome to it! Putting the hammer aside for a break to properly enjoy this impromptu concert, I then suddenly picked up the call of a kingfisher as its shrill whistle cut through the other birdsong like a knife through butter – it was back again! Fully expecting it to have disappeared around the bend of the stream and out of sight by the time I stuck my head over the bank for a look, I was astonished to see it perching on one of the hazel branches arcing over the brook from our side of the bank.
Even without binoculars the red base to the lower mandible could be clearly seen and immediately identified the bird as a female. As far as I was concerned, the presence of an adult female in the middle of March meant that she was clearly the resident female and would be laying her first clutch within the month. How exciting was that? Not only did we have kingfishers whizzing past the bottom of our garden, but the presence of a female so close to the breeding season indicated that there would almost certainly be a resident male too, which in turn probably meant that the nest site would be close by. Our own resident kingfishers – it was too thrilling for words, and, for me, total vindication for having bought the house and garden in the first place. True, we knew that both needed a lot of work, but the garden particularly had the most enormous potential, and more importantly we were going to have the most fun this year unlocking it.
Christina was envious of the fact that I’d been able to spend some quality time in the garden midweek, and so, come the weekend, she was determined to make up for her GWS (Garden Withdrawal Syndrome) by spending a couple of full days capitalising on our good start. Despite the fact that it was now nearer April than March, there had been a ground frost over night, but once again the weather looked set fair. What an early spring we were enjoying!
The first part of the morning was spent in the front garden. While we had already agreed to prioritise the back garden, the front garden did represent the public face of our property – and what would our neighbours think if we hadn’t made an effort? So while I carefully weeded, Christina’s job was to heavily prune the buddleia just to the right of our bay window, which had obviously not been touched for years and was enacting out its plans for world domination.
Buddleia is perhaps much better known as the butterfly bush, and I have strong memories from my childhood in Stafford of a huge butterfly bush in our next-door neighbour’s garden. Mr Hill also had the most amazing collection of pinned butterflies – a practice frowned on today now that digital photography has enabled collectors to create something every bit as good without harming a single insect. But what I remember even more clearly than his trays of butterflies was the thrilling sight of his huge butterfly bush alive with small tortoiseshells, peacocks and red admirals.
A native of China introduced here in the 1890s, the butterfly bush has proved a blessing and a curse in equal measure. While its long, honey-scented, purple flowering spikes are undoubtedly a big summer hit with all manner of moths and butterflies, its light winged seeds have also enabled its prolific spread across virtually the whole of Britain, with the exception of the far north. Certainly in Bristol you can’t pass a piece of waste ground in the city without at least a few buddleia bushes exploiting the cracks in between the pavement or the tiniest of crevices in the surrounding walls. Certainly on the train journey between Bristol and Bath, the buddleia dominates the vegetation along the rail-side clinker to such an extent that the view out of the window often seems to be that of just one very long, sinuous butterfly bush. So in a nutshell, because of its excellent wildlife credentials, the bush would be able to stay in the front garden, but only in a much more diminutive and manageable form!
Taking a break from our work, we put the kettle on in preparation for the arrival of a VIP. We were both terribly excited as we were about to receive a visit from gardening royalty. One of my oldest and dearest friends, whom I first met at university, one of the few people I stayed in contact with during my five years of working in the tropics and also the person whose floor I slept on for 10 months when I moved down to Bristol in 1999, is Mark. Being a Senior Producer at the world-famous BBC Natural History Unit, Mark has worked on everything from The Private Life of Plants to Human Planet, but, more relevant to this book, he is also the most amazing gardener, and a man who also seems to have chlorophyll rather than blood running through his veins. Also, rather hilariously, his surname is, erm, Flowers!
Mark had kindly accepted our invitation to come and give the garden a once-over and to dispense some much-needed advice, but what we hadn’t expected were the plants he also brought over, which were deemed surplus to requirements from his own garden. Arriving with the delightful surprise of his car boot chock-a-block with sedums, pulmonarias and phlox, Mark had also thoughtfully driven over in his gardening clothes, aware of the fact that he would have to sing for his supper!
Starting on the wooded bank, we were firstly keen for him to identify a few plants, which without flowers or foliage we were still unsure of. With the experience of having spent the best part of the last 40 years being obsessed with garden plants, this proved a straightforward exercise for Mark as he revealed with typical theatrical poise that we were also the proud owners of a magnolia, a viburnum and a winter-flowering honeysuckle. The magnolia was a particularly exciting find, but was really struggling for light and space and needed help.
Expertly handling the loppers, Mark began to prune the magnolia into a much more manageable size and a more aesthetically pleasing shape. Advising us that the surrounding shrubbery would also need pegging back, Christina, under Mark’s direction, began brandishing her secateurs as she continued to make room for our surprise find. As the two clipped their way into the surrounding vegetation I then began to get alarmed at the amount that was being taken out, stating that while I, too, was keen to see the magnolia flourish, it shouldn’t be at the expense of the native woodland species which had far higher wildlife potential. I also didn’t want too much of the hazel and hawthorn removed before the breeding season, as this would deprive the birds of potential nesting locations. Christina, of course, sided with my old friend by stating that if progress were to be made, then some of the vegetation would simply have to go. With both actively ganging up on me, I was not only outnumbered, but left with little alternative other than to accede to their demands, and I was also delegated the job of tidying up the mess that they had been busy creating!
I was keen to give Mark something in return for all the plants he had kindly donated, and I noticed that his eye had been caught by some of the snowdrops from our front garden which had finally gone over after putting on a fine display over the previous six weeks. The best time to dig up and split snowdrops, Mark explained, was just after the flowers had faded. Removing some of the bulbs would not only give the opportunity to introduce snowdrops elsewhere into the garden but would ensure that the remaining bulbs would have more than enough room to put on an equally impressive show the following winter. Following Mark’s lead, it really was child’s play as we carefully dug up a few bunches with trowels, which were then split into smaller clumps of, say, half a dozen bulbs. Some of these small clumps were then either given to our horticultural consultant as a gift, or planted down in the woodland to repopulate our bank the cheap, easy and quick way, rather than having to wait the decades necessary for the snowdrops to spread under their own steam. This was also the first time that we had played ‘botanical swapsies’ – a game which hopefully we would continue to enjoy during the up and coming months.
After lunch, Mark and I headed off to Bristol, Mark to enjoy the rest of the weekend back in his own garden whilst I was away to feed one of my other addictions – watching football. Both watching and playing sport has often come a close second to my obsession with natural history, to the extent that Christina has long since given up fighting the constant drone of BBC Radio Five Live that I usually insist of having on in the background all weekend. Having chosen to support Bristol City since my move down to the West Country, it has to be said that, while skill levels are often seriously lacking, it is still a fun way to spend every alternate Saturday afternoon. Making me feel only slightly guilty that she was determined to carry on working whilst I was off enjoying myself, Christina wanted to begin digging up the weedy section of lawn running the length of the garage. Our aim was that this section would be turned into one of the real highlights of the more formal part of the garden – what better place to plant a huge herbaceous border?
I returned some three hours later, buoyed by an uncharacteristically adept performance and a 2–0 win by The Robins, and I couldn’t believe how much Christina had achieved in such a short space of time. Having removed the turf, she had then created a lovely sweeping curve that would mark the front edge of the bed – the neck of which began at the defunct garage side-door, and widened out to a depth of three yards past the wisteria and newly erected trellis, before then swinging sharply back in to meet the corner of the garage wall underneath the hawthorn standard and by the water butt. This shape had the effect of a drawing the eye away from the garage and down the garden towards the apple trees. Not content to stop there, she had also turned over most of the soil, incorporating three or four pre-purchased bags of compost to create the perfect growing medium. In the space of three hours and out of nothing she had just created a herbaceous border in which to put all Mark’s plants. This girlfriend was a keeper!
In fact, it would turn out to be a weekend of guests. I met Ed when we both worked on Springwatch; I was employed as Bill Oddie’s researcher, and Ed and I have since become the firmest of birding buddies. Not content with regular birding excursions around the UK, we have also satisfied our unquenchable thirst for birdies with a whole array of trips to Europe, the Middle East and West Africa. A full decade and a bit younger than me, Ed is without doubt one of the finest birders of his age in this country, and in addition to having the largest private collection of feathers, skulls and wings I have ever seen, he has also found time to be one of Britain’s top peregrine experts. Another addition to his mightily impressive CV was his recent qualification as a bird ringer, and it was in that capacity that I wanted to invite Ed round. Hopefully a siskin or reed bunting in the hand would on this occasion beat two in the bush!
Even penetrating above the buzz of my electric toothbrush and through the double glazing of the bathroom I could still hear the deep timbre of male wood pigeons serenading prospective partners with their endlessly repetitive ‘I’m bor-ing I am, I’m bor-ing I am’ call as I got ready for a morning’s bird-ringing. The wood pigeon’s call is possibly the sound that reminds me most of my childhood, as I have strong recollections of their call droning on in the background whilst I prised myself out of bed each morning for my paper round before school.
Befitting a man who’s time-keeping is always nothing short of perfect, Ed pulled onto the drive exactly at our pre-arranged time of 7.30am, and without further ado we barrelled straight out into the back garden to work out the best locations to put up his mist nets. For those not familiar with mist nets in action, they are made of nylon mesh vertically suspended between two poles, giving a vague resemblance of an oversized volleyball net. When properly deployed, the nets are virtually invisible and, most importantly, are able to capture birds without causing any injury whatsoever. We decided to place a six-yard net alongside and parallel to the wooded bank and a 12-yard net running lengthwise along the garden just to the right of the feeders, so that any birds flying in to feed would hopefully become ensnared.
With a little cloud cover and no wind, weather conditions for trapping were initially perfect, but no sooner had we trotted back inside to leave the nets in peace, than the double whammy of both the sun coming out and a breeze picking up instantly made it trickier to catch large numbers of birds, for the simple reason that a billowing net is more easily spotted, giving the birds that vital extra millisecond to take avoidance measures. The protocol is that the nets should be checked at least every 15 minutes, so we were delighted on our first inspection to have caught both a blue tit and a great tit in the biggest net. Of course, extricating birds from mist nets is an art that takes years of practice, as birds can easily become heavily tangled in the net, are frightened and surprisingly susceptible to being damaged with inexperienced hands. So I confined myself to photographing the action whilst Ed carefully twisted, turned and rotated each bird with remarkable dexterity until both were free of the net and safely slotted into his ringing bags. My job then morphed from photographer to scribe as I noted down the measurements Ed took of their wing length, weight, age and sex before he placed a metal ring containing a unique code on each bird’s leg which would identify it if it were re-trapped or found dead. The birds were then released back into the garden.
As someone who has watched great tits thousands of times through binoculars, I thought I knew this common garden visitor pretty well, so I was gobsmacked when Ed told me that the key to sexing great tits in the field is to look at the black breast-stripe, which is wider in the males than the females. I was slightly embarrassed that someone of my alleged repute hadn’t even been aware of this basic fact. How come I had not read this somewhere or even realised it myself from all my years of birding? I suppose one of the most fascinating aspects about wildlife is that the more we learn about this huge subject, the more we realise how little in fact we really know. Even after a lifetime of studying birds, in many ways I was still only scratching the surface. One thing was clear from this revelation; I would have to start looking at my common birds through different eyes from now on!
As the morning went on, although a deluge of birds never materialised due to the weather conditions not working in our favour, we still managed to ring nine blue tits, four great tits, and one each of robin, chaffinch, dunnock, coal tit, wren, long-tailed tit and, best of all, a goldcrest – the latter being a bird I hadn’t even recorded in the garden until we discovered one in the net! In between the net checks we’d also been royally entertained by a couple of jackdaws flying back to our uncovered chimney pots with twigs – it looked like the first nest of the breeding season wouldn’t be constructed in one of the newly erected nest boxes but inside our chimney instead!
The lovely weather, while preventing the capture of any siskins or reed buntings, had managed to encourage a couple more male brimstone butterflies out of hibernation, but the best sighting of the morning was indisputably our first small tortoiseshell of the year. This butterfly was a particularly pleasing addition to our garden list, as this is a species which has seemed to have all but disappeared over the last couple of years, due to its larvae having been targeted by a parasitoid fly. Fingers crossed that this would be the year of the small tortoiseshell fight-back!
Having just spent the last couple of days in a sleep-deprived and ratty state hasn’t been good. The nesting jackdaws I had been only too happy to observe with Ed a couple of days previously have been habitually at their most communicative at around 4.30 in the morning. And with the chimney breast actually passing en route through our bedroom between the fireplace and chimney pots, it has actually felt like the birds have chosen to nest at the foot of the bed instead. Enthusiastic though I was to do everything possible within my powers to encourage all nesting birds, I had just discovered that this welcoming attitude would not be at the expense of a good night’s sleep. Nevertheless, I felt the painful irony in making the decision to unceremoniously evict the first pair of birds to have actually shown an interest in nesting. The best available option would be to remove the nest as quickly as possible before the female laid her clutch, meaning she would have time to re-build and raise a family elsewhere.
So a couple of days later I had to spend the morning watching, with mixed emotions, as Ben the local Chew Valley chimney sweep dislodged the most enormous jackdaw nest out of our chimney. Hopefully that would be the first and last time I would ever have to pay for a nest removal. I elected to spend the rest of the day cheering myself up in the garden, and I decided that I would get stuck into a couple of jobs that would allow me to show Christina on her return home from work how much progress I had made.
The first job would be to tidy up the mess that the lopping and pruning duo of Mark and Christina had created the previous weekend. While chatting to Marjory and Dennis as they put out their recycling the week before, my beady eye had also noticed a shredder hidden in their extensively stocked garage. Being the generous souls I now knew them to be, they instantly offered it out for loan on condition that I would also shred some vegetation they had recently generated from a spot of gardening of their own.
Once again I was blessed with the most beautiful weather as I powered up the shredder and set to work. By doing little more than feeding one branch after the next into the ever-voracious jaws of a shredder, there was something incredibly satisfying about seeing a huge, messy stack of brushwood converted into nothing more than a small pile of macerated twigs. In fact, in under an hour both piles of vegetation were polished off, leaving me more than enough time to finish off the composting bins in time for their inspection by my other half.
I was just in the process of moving my tools into the garden when I suddenly caught sight of a rather extraordinary insect buzzing around the primroses and lesser celandines in the meadow. Looking like a cross between a bee and a mosquito with a huge proboscis was surely one of our most spectacular early spring insects, the large bee-fly. With the wonderful Latin name of Bombylius major, the bee-fly is in fact a fly as it only has a single functional pair of wings in contrast to the two pairs owned by bees, and whilst its huge proboscis looked like a hornet’s sting it is nothing more than an utterly harmless tube designed to tap into the deeply recessed nectaries of some flowers. This is a creature that has become an increasingly regular fixture in our towns and gardens over recent years, but for me it was a total surprise and a fabulous addition to my ever-increasing garden list.
Upon nailing the last planks in place, the compost bins were so heavy that I could scarcely move them into their allotted positions without either damaging them or my back. Finally, having managed to wrestle what must have been in excess of a 220lbs of timber into place I suddenly and belatedly realised that their uneven look was due to the fact that I hadn’t taken enough care to level the ground that I had placed them on beforehand. Reminding myself that they were compost bins and not artworks, rather than risk a hernia I decided they were fine where they were, and, most importantly of all, at last they were ready to be used.
Dismissing their wonky nature out of hand, Christina was so pleased with all my hard work she immediately declared I should take the rest of the evening off. And proceeding to pour me a large glass of wine before cooking a terrific meal, she was true to her word. In fact, my only delegated job that evening was to dispose of the vegetable peelings – well, somebody had to christen the new bins!
