Hi Nic
I’m beginning to think you could write a book about all the comings & goings in your garden as it makes such good reading. At the very least a column in a local paper!
Rather hilariously I’ve paid a price for having the sparrows nesting in the roof. During the torrential rain we had last week there was Niagara Falls outside the bedroom window as it gushed over the top of the downpipe & hammered to the ground. I went out in shorts & a t-shirt with buckets to collect as much as I could, kept emptying them on the garden & putting them back to fill again. It was lovely getting soaked myself after all the hot dry weather! Shows how useful a water butt would be, I collected water off the shed roofs too & must have had 14 gallons if not more altogether. When the weather settled down on Monday I had the window cleaner have a look as he does gutters & cleaned mine last year & lo & behold the end of the gutter was completely blocked with dropped nesting materials & soil. It had formed a mat & also gone down the elbow & stuck there too. It’s now clear & I hope the sparrows (still active in the roof) teach their babies to hop across the downpipe not fall in it. Nice as it’s been having them there I’ll have to get the hole under the tiles filled when autumn comes as don’t want blocked gutters again. Could have flooded their nest actually the way the water was moving.
So nice to see elsewhere on Hedgehog Street forums how many people have hog activity, gives you hope doesn’t it. Just wish the markers would refrain & simply enjoy the spectacle of having such amazing creatures in their gardens.
Has Digger given any clues as to what she’s been up to yet? Baby robins are so cute, so unlike the adults with their speckled feathers.
Your front garden sounds a better place since you made the changes, it’s always a bad feeling getting rid of a tree but you’ve replaced it wisely as far as the wildlife are concerned.
I read on an RSPB blog a few years back to put random sticks in the border as perches for birds. I had a couple of old walking sticks so ‘planted’ them along with assorted longish pieces of fallen branches, including fixing some longer ones to the fence so they’re elevated above it & the birds use them all. Have left Evening Primrose plants each year now after they finish flowering because the birds like the seeds & the plant dries out eventually forming more perches. Have lots of little Evening Primrose plantlets coming up all over the garden every year but just take out the ones in the wrong place & leave the rest. The perfume from them wafts in through windows at night when they’re in flower, beautiful. Day & night insects feed on them too.
All in all, nature makes us feel better doesn’t it when all else around us is going a bit potty!
