As I write the garden seems to be over-populated by young birds of the year. Mostly dull-brown starlings, which bustle about like demented clockwork toys, arguing with each other and with anyone else who gets in the way of their sharp-pointed beaks. They monopolise the bird table, scattering food this way and that as if the supply were endless, then descending to ground level to retrieve their discards as though they had discovered new treasure trove. The blackbirds, chaffinches, and the house sparrows wait patiently below to garner their share of the manna from above.
Although not resident in my garden I am regularly visited by song and mistle thrushes which have nested in the larger garden of my neighbour, and the short-tailed young of both species point to successful breeding. It is my impression that both species have made a very slight comeback from the population crash that they have suffered. Blackbirds and their young abound. One adult male in particular, looking somewhat scruffy after the breeding season, is very partial to the bowl of porridge oats that I put out on the lawn. His intimate knowledge of the garden allows him to make an unduly rapid approach, coming in low to land some distance away, and his momentum carries him in just two or three very long hops to the edge of the bowl.
I think that oats are an under-rated bird food, and if you shop around they can prove cheaper than many of the standard bird foods. When my bird friends and I are on a budget that certainly makes a difference, especially in winter when demand skyrockets.
There is an all-brown speckled-breasted young robin in the garden just now who obviously fancies it as his own pad. He is beginning to face down other birds around the feeders, and I daily see his bright shoe-buttoned eyes looking intently my way when he (could it be she!) thinks feeding time is about due.
I noticed a week or so ago that the brightly-coloured male chaffinch had come back into full song. This indicates that young are about to leave the nest. Research has shown that he, along with the males of many other songbirds, sing at this time so that the young males in his brood can ‘learn’ the right song to use when they, in their turn, come to mate and maintain territories of their own. But what use is this if his young happen to be female? It seems that not only do they listen out for the right song when they are adult, but slight variations in the repertoire of a male may give some clue as to his suitability. Nature never ceases to amaze, does it!
Musk mallow is just coming into flower in my garden. The clear pink-flowered version that I have has self-seeded for over twenty years since I first sowed it. A beautiful member of the mallow (hollyhock) family, it is beloved by nectar-seeking insects, whilst its deeply dissected foliage is eyecatching even before it comes into flower. It certainly deserves its place.
You may be interested to know that we are about to publish an updated and expanded version of ‘Lamb’s Tails for Breakfast’ a story of village life in the nineteen twenties and thirties, which first appeared in 1979. The personal tale of my dear old friend George Wood’s life, it is a fascinating look back at an age that seems lost in the mists of time. More information in my next diary.