The bird watcher

She sits there, watching the work, just waiting for us to go away. She’s keen for the worms our gardener may have brought to the surface with her hoeing.

These days the first thing you see when you look into our back garden in the morning is a blackbird running across the lawn or stopped to rootle into the lawn. Indeed it’s not often that you look at the garden & not see a blackbird somewhere.

When we first moved here I was surprised not to see a single blackbird. The garden I grew up with in my childhood always had them. I soon discovered the reason for the absence. The previous owners of this house were great believers in slug pellets. Little blue balls seemed to be everywhere. The slugs & snails abounded even so. We soon abandoned the balls, did a little slug & snail hunting myself & left the rest to the frogs & birds. Now we have a few pairs of blackbirds & considerably fewer slugs & snails. Nature’s found her own balance. Okay there’s a few lacy hostas etc. but that’s a small price to pay for the joy of the blackbird’s song when he proclaims his territory.