MaySpring
blossoms and my attention is drawn to the birdlife of the garden as
they sing and build nests. Gradually the lush greens of summer emerge
and with it the birds disappear behind the foliage becoming less easy
to see. I am now into full swing with my project and enjoy the absorption in the fecund of the garden |
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| Garden |
1st May
My wife has pointed out to me that what I call Beech trees are not
Beech trees, but Lime trees. Which no doubt is why the young leaves are so
tasty. This is embarrassing but also interesting, the trees have become different
entities for me, they are not the same and I look at them differently. |
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5th May
The garden is maturing into its summer plumage. The
Mulberry leaves slowly emerging, the ash trees much more quickly and there
seems to be a particular abundance of blossom on the holly trees. This
morning the blackcap had returned, which I eventually tracked down after
hearing the song echo throughout the garden. It seems to me to be half way
between a robin and a blackbird, that at least is how I recognize it. I have
also been noticing three larger birds who make regular visits to the garden,
the jay, the magpie and the great spotted woodpecker. The woodpecker flies
into a Sycamore tree near the house, occasionally looping down to the
Mulberry tree but more normally flying up to the large Sycamore tree in the
wilderness. He seems very busy and very anxious and it is not easy to get a
photograph of him |
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7th May
A lovely experience today. Birdsong filled the garden and
on closer attention I could discern two separate songs. There was a blackcap
singing high up in the large ash tree and then down by the garden shed a
robin also singing, when one stopped the other started up, as if they were
having a singing competition! |
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10th May
A fox in the garden today. It peered at me for a long time
from the other side of the Mulberry tree before trotting off. I also noticed
a wood pigeon flying into the holly tree with a twig and on further
investigation saw another pigeon sitting on a nest -- are they still making
the nest after some eggs have been laid? |
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11th May
The wood pigeons seem to have taken up serious residency
in the holly tree and I already have warm feelings towards their domesticity.
The female sits tightly clamped to the nest. Whether there are eggs there or
not, I don't know, but I suspect she is in the process of laying. Meanwhile
the male flies off in constant sorties to gather twigs of all sorts. I have a
soft spot for wood pigeons, there is a ponderous gentleness about him and I
love their surprising agility when reaching down from a precarious branch to
pluck elderberries from a distant extremity. |
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12th May
The garden is now in its full flush of early summer
greenness. Everything is very abundant. The Mulberry leaves are, very slowly,
emerging along with what I take to be the green embryos of their fruit. The
Wood Pidgeon was absent from her nest last night but has returned today, so
is, presumably, waiting for the eggs to come. The male, who has a tail
feather missing, continues to be attentive. I thought the blue tits had
abandoned their prospective nest site in the roof of the rectory, but today I
saw them returning so, maybe, they are still considering it. |
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13th May
A bright warm morning and the garden is looking
spectacular. A wren sings his heart out from the top of the Mulberry tree and
the bluebells send an azure ripple beneath its emerging greenness. The
bluebells, however, are beginning to fade as the flowers of spring begin to
make their transition into the fruits of autumn. |
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17th May
Yesterday the wood pigeon nest had completely disappeared.
There was not a single sign that it had ever been there. I suspect that once
an egg was laid the squirrels very quickly ransacked the nest and destroyed
it in the process. I have noticed them previously running by very close to
it. But there could, of course, be another explanation. Nonetheless squirrel
pie sounds to me like an attractive option. Meanwhile the garden is full of
summer somnolence, even if the grinding, thumping noise of London makes it
somewhat less than an idyll. The air is full of insects and the dazzling
bluebells fade into their seed heads |
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19th May
The bumbarrels have reappeared. On the top of the Mulberry
tree a wren was singing with its accustomed vigour and looking up I saw two
furry balls just below it. They were two bumbarrels preening themselves.
Lovely to see them again, after a while they flew off, their gentle tweeting
just audible beneath the wren's song. |
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22nd May
The starlings have been very vocal in the trees. They must
be feeding on something up there, but I don't know what it is. The city is
also becoming noisy in this fine summer weather and the garden is only quiet
in the early morning, when it is very tranquil with the filtered sunlight and
clear blue sky above. Yesterday I managed to take some decent photographs of
the collared doves which are frequent visitors to the garden. They looked
very pretty framed against the delicate green leaves of the ash tree |  | |
25th May
A change in the weather; a chill to the air after the
sweltering heat of yesterday. The garden is also changing as the bluebells fade
and the elder begins to come into flower. I noticed, also, flowers beginning
to appear on the bramble | ||
26 May
A hazy green morning. Starlings scuff and argue in the
treetops and down beneath a wren trills its energetic song. The Mulberry
leaves are emerging into something more like their final size and shape and
beneath them the green catkins, promising fruit, dangle. A small troop of
starlings fly up into the late-leafing sycamore and a solitary swift scythes
over the wilderness. The Mulberry tree is strange at this time of year, no
longer the skeletal monster galumphing across the lawn but not yet the
full-leafed behemoth of greenness. At the edge of the lawn, Comfrey flops
down and is visited continuously by bees burrowing up into the mass of pink
and white blossoms. The big ash tree in the wilderness looks magnificent in
its early plumage spreading out above the trunk, green and shiny. | ||
28 May
The wilderness is now very overgrown. Stinging nettles
crowd the path and deep under the foliage midge-like insects send me scurrying
out into the sunlight. Elsewhere the elder flowers continue to emerge,
suddenly springing from an obscure green into a sun-blinking white. |  | |
31 May
The garden is very quiet. London sleeps on an overcast
Bank holiday Monday and everything is bathed in a very curious grey light. In
a corner of the garden buttercups bring a splash of speckled yellow
underneath the fronds of unfurling bracken, in an most unusual, but
attractive sight. Elsewhere the first foxglove has come into flower |  | |
Spring Birds
A hop of blackbird
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