Garden (winged) visitors ...

As we've watched the garden develop over the five summers we've been here, we've also gained an interest in our garden visitors ... with the apple and cherry trees and the unruly fig against the back wall, there are plenty of hiding places and a varying food supply throughout the year. We're not such tidy gardeners, after all, so there is plenty to keep the insect population going, but I don't go looking for them!

The birds come to us ... and recently I added to their menu by putting up a bird feeder.

We've had all the common varieties of finch ... but few tits although I know they frequent the garden ... we hear them regularly. There was a great tit nest in the hollow trunk of the apple tree, but it was raided by a cat, so I'm not surprised, just saddened.

They're getting through half a feeder a day of seed (not all eaten, they sort it through, throwing to the ground anything they don't want ... so there is plenty for the ground feeding black birds and robins, and I suspect also the occasional raid by pigeons and rats). I've since put up a nut feeder in the hope of luring back some of the tits, but it's not as popular and is as likely to be used by finches as tits. Maybe the tits will return next spring.

One of our two cats had a bell on his collar but was still able to hunt as he knew how to move without it sounding, the other had lost her bell altogether ... so I've now given them two bells each, much harder for them to move so quietly. We've had no kills brought home since, certainly!

Recently, we learned to identify the tawny owl by call ... not the twit-twoo call, we know that well and hear it occasionally, but the screech of a location call. We know there are owls living in a steep, wooded valley behind the house ... but having heard the call on SpringWatch (and recognised it from our time on holiday - see Bolt Hole) we were surprised to hear it one night at home ... we ended up outside in our nightwear, watching as it looped round above the houses after dark.

Another surprise this week, to see a SparrowHawk perched high up in the conifer tree ... I had thought earlier this week that something was upsetting the local gull population (some of them are nesting on chimneys down the road) and thought I saw a glimpse of a predator of some kind, but was unable to identify it at the time. This time it was gone before I could grab a camera, but we all had a good view and identification was easy!

Something Old for Something New ...

The church of which I'm part was partly destroyed by incendiaries in 1941 ... it was rebuilt after the war, but in haste, and we have struggled to maintain the building ever since, because of the damp that now infests the walls. Long before I came to worship here, the church have been working towards redeveloping the site ... and this week, the project began:



We'd been to a meeting on the site for the developer to take some publicity pictures before the demolition started ... not so good in the pouring rain, but the photographer coped marvellously! Then on to somewhere else for refreshments and a radio interview. It was on the way home that we saw the first piece being taken out of the side of the church ... so I stopped to get some pictures. I could have watched for hours, it was fascinating A small crowd soon gathered, and DH spent a while talking to folk explaining what's happening, while I snapped away with the camera:



You could hear maisonery falling inside the church with a tremendous noise ... all very dramatic. I expect it will come down quite quickly now Lots of memories for different folk, but a millstone round the neck of the church for many years now. It will be some time before we can meet on site again, in a new church surrounded by flats, but the church continues as we meet each week in a local school. We're not simply biding our time, waiting for a cosy, warm and dry building in which to meet - while we're in the school we have contact with an area we don't usually visit ... how to make the best of it, that's the question!

Out of Place

I've been meaning to show these to you for a while ... this is the second year they've nested on the slipway next to the water ...



Last year they had four cygnets, although sadly none survived. I'm not sure how many they started with this year, but this little one is the only one I've seen. Perhaps they'll have more success with just one to look after, but they don't give the impression of being particularly clever swans ... look where the nest is situated ...



... right by the foot ferry Nice to see them when you catch the boat, but hardly a safe place to raise the kids

Bolt Hole

This is the view from the bedroom window of my bolt-hole ... our holiday home on the other side of Devon. It's a place where I relax the minute I walk in the door ... it's been a haven for us for nearly 13 years now.

This view looks north, across a field where there are remains of a Roman villa, so we have the assurance that it will never be built on (we are surrounded on three sides by housing). Which means that we have a wealth of wildlife around us and we are constantly surprised at the variety. This time we saw the usual range of birds (blackbird, great tit, blue tit, sparrow, pigeon and the inevitable gulls!) as well as fledglings (esp. great tit - they flock in the hedgerow and make such a lot of noise), swifts, swallows ... and the magnificent sight of a tawny owl, looping round and round the houses late one night, calling constantly ...

A neighbour told us that she nests in the oak tree that is part of the boundary between our garden and the field, and has been a successful mother, with chicks these past two years - a shame we won't be there this year to see them fledge.

We caught only a glimpse of another joy - the bats. We are used to seeing three or four flying round the garden at this time of year, but only had a good view of one this year.

We put up another bird feeder ... and our most regular visitor is the squirrel family ...


Not such good photo against the light - but you have to take your chances, they are such acrobats!