Counting

I've just been doing my bird count. It was pleasant, sitting in the open kitchen doorway looking down the back garden, past the new bird table. The warmth of the sun fell on my feet, whilst I was sufficiently in the room to escape the cooling breeze. The garden is a hive of activity today.

I discovered the disadvantages of doing a count at this time of year. Our garden is full of shrubbery, trees, grass &, down that side at the moment, yellow irises. In winter most of this dies down, but, in June, it is full of lush green growth. The birds rapidly disappear into the undergrowth or the foliage higher up.

The other disadvantage is that so many birds are juveniles, not yet in their full adult plumage. So, for example, we were visited by some starlings, more balls of greyish brown fluff than the spangled outfits the adults wear. A young magpie appeared. Its white plumage was more grey than white, and the navy shot through with shimmering green of the rest was more navy & grey-brown.

This count also asks you to count all that crawls, hops or flutters in the garden. I'm afraid I can count clouds of midges but not the individual midges in a cloud. Equally I can count spiders, frogs, snails, slugs, flies etc but not identify the particular species of spider, snail etc. I am aware there are greenfly out there mainly because, by the time I've had a rummage in some of the undergrowth to count some of these shyer creatures, I seem to return inside covered in greefly.

I'm not really convinced my counting of these smaller creatures even has much validity because I am much more interested in watching the antics of the birds than focusing on the very small scale to locate these others. I can certainly only count them in a very small area otherwise I'd be there forever, mooching along inches at a time. I've just visited the obvious spots. These include the lily bed for the frog, the chives for the bees, the raspberries for the speckled wood butterflies.

I'm telling myself I've done my best & that's all I can be expected to do.