Firebird!

Last week I was visiting the APs in Devon and took the opportunity to do a little pottering in the garden - the weather was mostly mild and sunny, and the terrace was busy with deep blue damsel flies, orange tip butterflies, even the occasional small blue. My mother and I amused ourselves by counting bird species actually nesting in the garden - we got to well over 30, a count that includes ravens, jays, sparrowhawks, nuthatches...I've just done a similar count for home, and achieved similar numbers of very different birds (and because our northern garden doesn't include many large trees, the way the Devon one does, I expanded our area to include the fields immediately surrounding us, so the buzzards count here, but not in Devon). As I'm writing this at my desk in the window, a pair of bullfinches - regular visitors attracted by my rather laissez-faire atttitude to dandelions - landed in the ash tree opposite.

The high point of the Devon visit, though, was a sighting unlike any I've experienced before: as I walked across the terrace there was a tremendous kerfuffle as two birds hurtled into a pittosporum bush, shrieking their heads off. A high piercing note, an unmistakable screech of fury, and the minute bird emitting the racket was positively bouncing up and down on his branch. Yet despite his tiny size he was highly visible, because he was raising and flashing his crest, a violent streak of fiery orange that flashed in the sunlight. I watched spellbound for several minutes while he bounced and flashed, until the object of his wrath burst from the depths of the bush and fled across the wooded slope below the terrace. The owner of the spectacular headgear was a goldcrest, one of the enchantingly named kinglet family, and our smallest songbird:

Photo from Wikipedia

How such a tiny bundle of fluff could make such a noise I can't imagine, but the picture above does give some idea of the brilliance of his crest. In the past I've struggled to see these elusive creatures, which are more generally "sighted" by tracking their creaky tseeping cry (what Wikipedia calls "a subdued rambling sub-song" - love it!) to a bush and then peering into the murky interior to see the odd flick of a wing - they like dense bushes like yew, and nest in conifers, which makes them especially hard to see. I believe we may have them around us here in Northumberland, I think I heard them in the woodland a couple of fields away, but the tree cover around our garden is not heavy enough for them to visit us here.

I'm back home enjoying the sparrows - my mother is delighted that they now have a regular pair, and envies us our rambunctious flock of more than thirty. Who would ever have thought that sparrows could be rare?

Even crosser!

I wish I could have shared with you the spectacular sight today of two cock pheasants fighting in the snow! They met on the garden wall, and immediately took offence at each other, fluttering down to the ground where they leapt and struck out. This went on for several minutes while I alternately watched in delight as the sun shone on pristine snow and the rich russet of their feathers as they jumped and curvetted, and cursed while I tried unsuccessfully to make the phone camera work. Wretched thing, it refused to load, and the pheasants disappeared into the hedgerow.

Now that I really want to photograph the pheasants before the snow disappears, the sun probably won't shine tomorrow. But for now, at any rate, I like this picture.

Cold and cross

Well, not quite as bad as that really, but the kitchen blackboard on which we note things for the next shopping trip looks as though someone just threw letters at it, so many things are needed. When we buy next year's calendar I'm going to make a note on the October pages that we must stock up on chicken corn, dogfood and prescription needs...that's snow shovels, down the bottom because Younger Son and I could have done with one as we lurched along the track last Friday (with me pushing the car). Lemsip is there, too, because I got home from London that night with a cold which I'm still recovering from, and which is responsible for the lack of blogging here in the last few days. I've been saving my energies for the daily trip outside to clear the gutter where the broadband connection comes into the house, to feed the wild birds and to take the hens their bowl of warm porridge. Instead of demerara sugar on top (which is how I like it), they have a generous sprinkle of dried mealworms.


There's no immediate prospect of getting out. We're not completely cut off, as the neighbours have just managed to get their 4-wheel-drive out this week, but our cars won't manage the mile up to the road until the snow clears a bit, and more is still coming down every day. This is the view from our French windows - that black thing on the left-hand-side is the gutter, which came down last winter as well. There should be some hills in the distance, but I haven't seen the Cheviot for a week. We won't be desperate for supplies until the milk goes off or the bread flour runs out, but today I came in from the outdoor jobs and made a honey and ginger cake for comfort eating (and to use up the older eggs). As you can see from the rather blurry picture, it wasn't long out of the oven before YS and I succumbed to the lure of hot cake. While I was making it I spotted half a jar of marmalade in the fridge - I know what I'll make next! If the milk goes before we can get out to replace it, having cake should help to offset the horror of drinking my tea black (though there will be much gnashing of teeth if this becomes necessary, since I am a tea addict, incapable of working without a regular supply).

Oh, our post has just found its way here by tractor! YS is happy as he was expecting something - we rely very heavily on shopping by post here - me, less so, as the parcel posted from Devon last Tuesday still hasn't arrived. Ho hum. I'll keep hoping for a thaw, but meantime a huge load of snow has just slid off the roof outside my window!

Winter visitors

 Fieldfare

Photo taken in Rumia, Poland by Adam Kumiszcza

They're back, the fieldfares, and my heart gave a real leap when I saw them in the ash trees at the top of the garden this morning. They are much later than in some areas of the country, but I've found that to be the case every year. There will be no shortage of berries for them this year.

And seeing visitors

 Photo: RSPB website

Rather exciting to see one of these walking across the lawn this afternoon. It's a ring ouzel, presumably on its way into Britain and heading for the nearby moorland and summer nesting ground. I was hoping to get a photograph of it, but the resident blackbirds were very agressively seeing it off even as I spotted it. The population is in serious decline in here, so I count myself lucky to have had even a fleeting sight.

The jackdaws, meanwhile, are frantically flying in the most bizarre collection of potential nesting material, bits of fluff (deer and dog?), spare feathers - even an unattached pheasant wing, which was proudly conveyed to the nest site. Ten minutes later, it was lying on the lawn - rejected? too heavy to stay put? A little later still, it had disappeared again, replaced, I assumed, but then I saw one of the jackdaws flying away from the nest with it. I'm not sure whether it was a strange bird, poaching, or a disenchanted partner ("It's not hygienic, dear!") Five minutes later, and its proud finder was back again with the wing firmly clutched in its beak. I guess it has now been cemented in!

Watching the neighbours

Jackdaw by soikha

My new neighbours are a very industrious couple. They spend most of the day nest-building, having chosen a desirable site in the ash tree opposite my window, and I can't help watching when I'm supposed to be working. I can't see the nest itself, as it is deep in the ivy I've been threatening to remove - every spring when I decide to start work in the garden, the birds have beaten me to it and I resign myself to waiting until the nesting season is over. Somehow, come the autumn, nothing gets done.

This morning, Cor and Cora (as I am beginning to think of them) are prowling about the lawn collecting clumps of grass mowings, as well as venturing further in pursuit of sticks from around the field margins. Every few minutes they return with beaks full of spiky additions, sometimes flagging under the weight of a particularly choice item. One nearly fell off the branch just now. They are being watched beady-eyed by a pair of wood pigeons, who have previously raised the odd brood in the depths of the ivy (not very sucessfully, the squabs have a distressing tendency to make fatal descents from the heights), and there may yet be some nest-nabbing! Judging by the amount of sparrow activity in the ash tree, there are a number of smaller homes too - that's the excuse for not removing the ivy, it does offer such excellent habitat, though I do worry about the weight of it when the winds are high.

I rather look forward to young jackdaws - they will undoubtedly be noisy, and may be destructive, but I suspect they might prove amusing, if young starlings are anything to go by. The sparrowhawks, by the way, are back as predicted, and telling everyone about it at the top of their voices!

Blackbirds and thrushes

The blackbirds and thrushes sang in the green bushes…

goes the folk song. Our garden is full of them at the moment, all intent on feathering their nests and nurturing their genes. At this time of year one of my amusements is watching sparrow fights, in which a horde of shrieking fluttering little brown birds rampage round the garden, like small boys in the school playground. This morning, though, it was blackbirds – five of them whizzed past me and into the hawthorn hedge, where I wondered if they would escape without getting spiked, so intent were they on each other.

Now that I’m at my desk, two very handsome song thrushes are stalking round the lawn, while overhead two buzzards soar. They too have been very active in the last few days, with some aerobatic displays more readily associated with some of the more agile raptors. This year I think we are going to have the buzzards nesting in the wood at the foot of the garden, while the sparrowhawks will probably be back in their usual tree just beyond the paddock. With both lots of fledglings screaming imprecations at their parents it could be a noisy summer. If you haven’t heard a hungry young sparrowhawk, believe me, it can shriek for England!

It’s pretty noisy already, in fact. There is a rookery here, and now that the rooks are convinced that spring is here, activity is non-stop. They wake at about 4am, with sleepy squawks and grumbles, and by about 5.30 the air of full of creaks and groans as they gear up for another busy day of collecting twigs. It’s not just picking of sticks (there’s another folk song – I’m as bad as the birds today) from the ground, the trees are full of rooks bent on that perfect twig, tugging away with dogged determination. On the fringes are the jackdaws, but they can’t compete for noise. Rook activity goes on all day, foraging for food and sticks, then as dusk falls those who aren’t nesting gather in our ash trees in great flocks like a flight of broken umbrellas, before rising all at once in a black cloud, streaming overhead on their way to their night roost in the woods.

Baby swallows in the rain

These small black dots are baby swallows sitting on the lawn, waiting to be fed - I think it's too windy and rainy for them to fly, so their parents are making regular sorties with laden beaks. The picture was taken through the window because it's raining too hard to set foot outside, and anyway, I didn't want to disturb the poor things.

Rather better is this picture, taken by younger son at the beginning of the week, a much later brood of babies. Three heads, I believe, in a delightfully warm and feathery nest, some of the feathers, I rather think, contributed by the Bluebell Girls.


For weeks now, I have been regularly woken at dawn - about 3.30am at the solstice last month - by liquid bubblings and churrings just outside my open window: the swallow babies waiting for their breakfast. They line up on the guttering and wait for a bristling beakful of flies. At least when I look at my untidy garden I can console myself with the knowledge that it's a excellent hunting ground, helping to provide for good numbers of babies each year - swallows, flycatchers, wagtails, bats, and the ever-present and garrulous sparrows.

In the snow

I wanted to share some pictures of the Cheviot while it was still completely shrouded in white, it has been so beautiful. This was taken the other evening:
It's very hard to take good pictures in the evening; my camera isn't really good enough. Despite the difficulty, I'm trying to take pictures of it in all its moods.
And here it is this afternoon.

All the snow on the trees and hedges has gone, but there is still some lying on the ground. And here, from the sublime to the faintly ridiculous, is our resident pheasant, taken by my son on a miserable day last week. Actually, he is exceedingly well fed, picking up any corn the chickens have missed and a wide variety of snacks from the bird table.

The Children of Lir

These creatures of the mist are whooper swans - cygnus cygnus - the Children of Lir, and winter visitors from Iceland and Scandinavia. I first saw them in Perthshire when I was eleven or so, when we walked across the hills to see them on Loch Moraig (you can see a photo of them on the loch here). It was a special day, and I fell in love with the romance of the swans on the water, and their wild wailing.

Last weekend, however, it was on a misty loch in the Scottish Borders that I took this picture. Sadly my camera battery was failing, and I was too slow to photograph the group that flew past mere yards away, just as I was too slow some days later when five flew past our kitchen window, honking mournfully. Nearby Berwick is famous for its huge wintering flock of mute swans, and I love to see them, but the whoopers are special, second only to unicorns. Fated to spend 900 years as swans, the Children of Lir were transformed by their stepmother Aoife, but were allowed to retain their human voices when she felt some remorse for her dreadful act:

And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music or any delight heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans. And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with men of Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be after it. (Lady Gregory, The Fate of the Children of Lir)

Just looking in

I wish I had been able to capture the moment of her arrival but I was quite surprised, as I sat here at the desk, when this young person arrived on my window sill. I think the windy weather may have had something to do with it - I was very glad it was a successful landing.

Back again

Well, the conference happened, the potatoes got planted, and I plunged into weeks of typesetting and grant applications, from which I'm only gradually re-emerging. I spent one of my regular weekends in Devon, where there was both joy and sadness in the garden: some lovely flowers and much glorious greenery to enjoy, while sympathising over the azaleas and camellias which had come out only to be blasted by frost. I took my mother to the garden centre and bought her two orchids on special offer to cheer her up - the wonders of micro-propagation! My retiring President sent me one, too, pictured above and still being enjoyed, though I have no confidence that I will ever manage to make it flower again.

The high point of the weekend past was moving the bird feeder. For over a year it has been in the same place in view of the sitting-room window, attracting a flock of "regulars" while affording them good protection from cats, kestrels and sparrowhawks. My resident flock of sparrows appreciate the hawthorn hedge just behind the pole, to perch in while they wait impatiently for food to arrive, to scold me from while I fill feeders, and to flee into if a sudden threat interrupts their feeding. The woodpeckers like the corkscrew willow near the pole, varying their diet with insects while they await their turn at the peanuts. The collared doves, woodpigeons and blackbirds all feed on the gravel underneath, amply supplied with seed by the sparrows who fling most of it out while searching for particular delicacies. The robins help with the filling of the feeders, perching in the garden bench until I put a tiny handful of seed on the seat for them. Happily, the feeding station could be moved to a similar position near another willow, and the residents have adjusted without difficulty.

At this time of year the day-long clamour of birds just living their small lives is staggeringly loud. Recently a small flock suddenly swooped into a tree next to me, all following two sparrows who were oblivious to everything but their conflict over, I imagine, some especially lovely lady. The noise was tremendous – I am sure that the followers were all shrieking "Fight! Fight!" like the "big boys" who used to scare me in the school playground. At night I have been surprised by the noise made by lapwings, nesting for the first time just over the garden fence – they swoop and squeal until well after dusk. As soon as they stop the owls take over, and sleep is punctuated by screeches. Elder son, enjoying a brief respite from the honking taxis and pubs of Edinburgh, commented that it was pleasant to enjoy the comparative quiet of the country, but those sparrows did make quite a racket!

Starling hordes

Something I've never seen before today - I had just restocked the bird feeders in the garden and was watching from indoors. The birds are all showing signs of preoccupation with spring and the breeding season - two chaffinches were having a fierce and fluttery spat on the ground - and, as usual at this time of year, the starlings have reappeared at the feeders, having been absent for much of the winter. While I was watching, a starling which was standing on the bird table reached down towards a sparrow on the fatball feeder, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and pulled it off, shaking it backwards and forwards in the air before dropping it. The sparrow flew off apparently unfazed, but I was full of indignation on its behalf.

I'm very fond of "our" sparrows, and enjoy watching them in the hawthorn hedge, where they each sit in their own little hollow, safely out of the eye of hawks and cats, waiting for the bird food to arrive. They are great characters, travelling in a little flock round the garden, cleaning insects from around the wheel-arches of the cars, clearing up after the chicken run has been moved on and generally carrying out their noisy lives in the full glare of public scrutiny, a sort of extended family appearance on reality TV. The starlings, on the other hand, are raucous and greedy: a fat slab disappears within hours of being put out. In summer whole families bicker over worms on the lawn and, every now and again, an entire flock descends for a day, and the air is full of noise. The beauty of the oily sheen on their feathers is, I admit, under-rated, but I cannot welcome them wholeheartedly.

Tomorrow I will take a little time to groom Senior Dog, who will provide copious clumps of soft brown fluff; these will roll around the garden like balls of tumbleweed, until it has all been collected by uxorious sparrows. The dogs regard the birdtable regulars with a benevolent eye, and SD will not begrudge it.

Swans at sunset

In London during the week, and travelling to Devon for the weekend the promise of spring is everywhere. Gordon Square, in Bloomsbury, was frothy with blossom, while crocuses bejewelled the grass, purple and golden in the sunlight. From the train on Friday, the first blackthorn was evident in the hedgerows.

On such a lovely day the journey was a pleasure; just outside Pewsey we passed a pigfarm, where a litter of Gloucester Old Spot piglets were enjoying the warmth. Several other rare breeds could be seen, Tamworth for certain and a pure black pig with Tamworth lines, perhaps a cross. I shall be looking out for them in future. Further west is the birdspotting section on line, from the water meadows below Stoke Woods near Exeter, along the coast to Newton Abbot. It's not so very many years since, with great excitement, I saw my first little egret at Dawlish Warren, a lone white figure on the marshes. Now they are a regular sight, sometimes in quite large numbers, hunting the mud flats all along that stretch, and they are becoming a common bird all over southern England. A couple of years ago my family and I spent a very pleasant afternoon taking a boat trip from Keyhaven to Hurst Castle, on the Solent, where we were able to watch egrets from the boat – I decided that, were I one, I would spend all day admiring my long yellow toes in the water. Not just little egrets, either – my mother was lucky enough to see a great egret on the Dart, and I heard on the radio that even cattle egrets have been sighted here. (I reported seeing a little egret on the Tweed at Berwick two years ago, but I don't think it was corroborated and therefore probably not official.)

Not many egrets of any kind in sight this weekend, however, but other waders, shelduck and swans (and the black swans on the other side of the train at Teignmouth). I'm writing this while watching the rooks and jackdaws in the trees at the foot of the garden – the rooks like to catch the evening sun in a Scots pine. A trio of swans is flapping lazily up the valley. The lawns are awash with snowdrops, the pink camellia is in full flower and the crocuses are a bright tapestry beneath the beech tree. While we walked round the garden considering necessary pruning, and even tackling the odd branch (my mother never goes out without her secateurs) next door's children, faces darkened with camouflage, stalked us through the undergrowth. This is a wonderful garden for children, full of almost-inaccessible paths and vertiginous slopes, so that you could believe you were in the jungle, or the boreal forest – being Devon the planting, some of which dates back to the beginning of the last century, lends itself to either. Of course, I didn't grow up here, and if you had told me when I first saw the house and garden that one day I would feel in some measure responsible for it, I would never have believed it. I'm not proprietorial – I shall never live here, but I've known the place for nearly 40 years, and I lie awake during gales wondering if the trees will all still be standing in the morning.

The sun has set now and I can hear the dog being fed downstairs. Time to go and help with the supper. Local sausages and mash, scrumptious.