I think this past week has been a fairly routine one as far as the birds in the garden are concerned and I don’t seem to have had any more occasional or unusual visitors.
I had some work done on the roof and gutters on Monday and Tuesday and that certainly deterred the feral pigeons after their breakfast, but they kept flying round as much to say, ‘Would you stop doing that we need some food’. When it got to later in the day they appeared but I hadn’t put more food out and then they disappeared off for the day without their supper. I’m sure they won’t have gone hungry!
The house sparrows and dunnocks have been coming to the seed feeder in little groups, generally in the morning and the flock of starlings has been flying around with a few coming to feed at times. I don’t know where they roost now but they are swooping around in a fairly large flock and seem to go a little way away off towards the countryside.
I haven’t seen the squirrels this week either, as they have totally stripped the cobnut tree of any nuts and obviously have enough food at the moment that they don’t need to supplement it on the peanut feeder. I wonder how many cobnuts and peanuts will start to grow in the flower beds and containers? I haven’t seen any more evidence of a hedgehog this week and I was talking with another neighbour and they said they haven’t seen one for three or four years, despite having a hedgehog house. I am very careful when I’m doing my autumn tidying or moving piles of old bricks and stored pots at this time of year, to make sure that I don’t disturb any creatures. The jackdaws have been coming in twos and threes and my picture this week shows one of them sitting on the top of the dead tree stump waiting their turn on the feeders. They’re still hopping about on the roof as well so I imagine they are continuing to use the old chimney pot for shelter.
It has been a strange year with the weather after the very wet and mild winter, but it is noticeable that there are a lot of berries on my holly, hips on roses and berries on the pyracantha bushes in my neighbour’s garden and so forth. I know that has sometimes been looked upon as a sign of a harsh winter to come, nature providing for the poor weather, but it is more a case of better times earlier in the year, which also accounts for the abundant apple harvest on one of my trees, as there was no frost anywhere near blossom time.
Written by Margaret Emerson
