Throughout much of lockdown and the "new normal" the weather has been very kind to us and I have found myself both working and sitting in the garden.
I would consider the 40 squares metres outside my backdoor a fairly conventional sub urban garden. It has a neat patio with a central lawn bordered by shrubby plants. There is a small pond in one corner and a long leylandii hedge down one side. It sits squarely in a 1970's housing estate on the edge of a small town. It is in many ways completely unremarkable, and yet this little patch is alive with activity.
There are currently 8 house sparrows sat on the lawn eating the crusts of yesterdays sandwiches. These are our most abundant visitors, we are lucky in this area that sparrow numbers seem to be doing so well. They are a gregarious and noise bunch at times. They have a favoured thorny bush into which they retreat when threatened and squabble incessantly.
At this time of the year the young hatched in the spring are entering adolescences many species especially the tit ones still show hints of yellow where there will soon be white and the young magpie looks like he has been soaked to the skin and then dragged through a hedge backwards. This year we have had a pair of young robins their speckled breasts only now showing the rusting which will develop into the vibrant orange breast. A few young blackbirds dodge the adults. Chased from one side of the garden to the other, unsure why the parents that once fed them now seem so disinterested. A pigeon nests in the hawthorn at the bottom of the garden and has been churning out chicks at a startling rate. The adults parade around the garden and this year seem intent on fighting and or mating at every opportunity.
Starlings are present in smaller numbers than usually, any seed and bread put out is usually devoured in seconds by these greedy gorks, where once tens used to visit now only handfuls. In place of the starlings come the feral pigeons, watching from the rooftops until the bread of seed is throne out and then descending like a mass of evacuation helicopters.
Dunnock's skulk in the undergrowth emerging only occasionally emerging at its edge. A wrens trilling song can be heard, a fairly new visitor to the garden as is the song thrush which after years of absence has been sighted on a handful of occasions this year. Rare visitors include the Sparrowhawk who seems most grateful for our bird feeders as is the great spotted woodpecker who loves the peanuts. Only occasional visitors in the summer but more so in the winter are the goldfinches and chaffinches which are often joined by pied wagtails in the coldest months. These are just the common birds, we have had blackcap, reed bunting, brambling and goldcrest all visit at least once.
High above the garden other birds pass, the lazily gliding buzzard, the languid herring gulls which call to make this central England locale sound positively coastal and the fast zipping screaming swifts and chattering house martins.
These are just the birds. Families of wood mice live in the hedge and under the bin store, grey squirrels hang from the branches to reach peanuts, a single brown rat tries to sneak food from the birds and before attempts were made to stop the rat we used to have hedgehogs, these now are restricted to the front garden. Frogs frequent the pond and lay their spawn each spring. The flowers attract a range of bees and hoverflies who industrially and methodically move from bloom to bloom. Yellow Ants live under the lawn and in the large plant pots will the more familiar black ants restrict themselves to the nest between the cracks in the patio paving.
The buddleia draws in large whites, tortoiseshells, peacocks, red admirals, and painted ladies whilst winds blow in holly blues, commas, meadow browns, gatekeepers and speckled woods. Whilst not living in the pond brown and common hawkers sometimes whirr in and take a turn around the garden.
What I am trying to show here is the diversity of life on our doorstep. This is one pretty average garden. Its not the mega fauna of the Serengeti but the life stories and the dynamics between survival and death are just as vivid as any Savannah grassland or tropical forest. A little time spent sitting in the garden can reveal in depth stories of infidelity between dunnocks, unwanted attention between woodpigeons and social hierarchy amongst mice.
Ecology isn't something that happens out there. Too often people believe to see nature you must go to nature reserves or that walks in the country are best, and to be fair those are all great things. I would advise everyone to go out and explore the countryside, visit our reserves but don't forget what is on your back doorstep. The nature here amongst the more mundane species is just as important. That which is abundant and local can so quickly become rare and endangered. In my life time song thrushes have gone from common a garden bird to rarity to be cherished when seen, outside our area house sparrows are declining alarmingly and starling numbers are falling.
If we don't appreciate the small things how can we ever hope to stop them becoming the rare? How can we hope to understand the big issues, the global ones, after all the tropical rainforests and african grasslands are just somebody else's gardens and back doorsteps.
