Well, we’ve always thought of Valentine’s Day as the birds’ wedding day, but this year the bouquet goes to the garden frogs. Mrs Turnstone ran indoors to grab her phone and record the event. We shall have to watch the weather and protect the eggs from frost, if we get any. It is unusually warm. But we have had lying snow in February, half a lifetime ago.
At least we can do a bit for the climate by helping the frogs who choose our pool. That may include covering it to prevent the blackbirds from fishing.
For a few weeks the birds in evidence in town have been jackdaws and other crows, gulls, including one that could not find its way out of St Thomas’ church, and members of the pigeon family. They do things their own way: last week I saw a half eggshell of a wood pigeon, but a town pigeon landed just in front of my bike to retrieve a lost stick needed for nest building on the old post office.
Precious little sight or sound of the song birds until this week. We were sitting under the trees at the Glebe when two robins began to sing quietly to each other just above our heads. Surely a couple. Then a happy surprise when our 4 year old blackbird reappeared. You may just distinguish his identifying white spots.
Mrs T eventually got to trimming the ivy hedge that grows over our garden wall and helps keeps intruders out. It will never be a masterpiece of topiary, but it is held in check with annual or biannual trimmings.
The main reason for delaying the trim is shown below: the birds nest in it. This blackbird’s nest does not have its lining of mud. Was it abandoned unfinished for some reason, or was it impossible to find the right sort of mud in this driest of summers? For sure the blackbirds raised two broods in the hedge this year.
Here is a fledgling from a few years ago, quite convinced he is invisible.
We recommend respecting the neighbours, they will repay you with interest — plenty of interest as you watch them go about their business.
Let the hedge grow till August, when the last chicks are fledged. Make sure they can get to water for drinking and bathing; ours like the tiny pond opposite the hedge. It gets plenty of shade and is full of oxygenating plants, mostly self-invited. We wish we had more frogs, but our last cock blackbird had been watching the kingfishers, I think, because he had learnt to catch tadpoles to feed his offspring. This year it seemed as though more survived to grow legs and make for dry land. Let’s hope so.
The solemnity of today will be overwhelmed by the joy of Easter, but there were tokens of the coming feast for those with eyes to see.
Before the sun was properly up I was looking into the back garden. What was that hunched figure inspecting the flowerpots? A hedgehog woken from hibernation and going about its business, ridding us of a few pests. That was enough to mark the day.
After the L’Arche Good Friday service some of us found our way to the Glebe garden, where a shrine had been built of willow wands. If this was intended to be a place of quiet reflection it became a meeting place for people who had barely seen each other during covid; another hint of the resurrection to come.
Flitting across the garden was a brimstone butterfly, a caterpillar died but transformed into a creature of beauty no less wondrous for being totally expected.
Then to my task of adorning the church porch. The Easter garden needed the finishing touches, Mary’s jar of ointment and the grave cloths hidden behind the door (a scallop shell to be rolled to one side). What concerned me was the Easter lilies. We had some in flower the last two years, but it had been touch and go this time. Since today was warm, the first flowers were unfurling to be bright and white on Easter Day.
In the evening down to the Cathedral to hear Faure’s Requiem, with its upbeat finish: May the Angels welcome you to Paradise, the martyrs meet you and lead you to the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Walking home from the Cathedralin the glowing dusk, under the Easter full moon, three blackbirds, singing their hearts out, serenading the new life hatched in their nests. They will be busy tomorrow, as no doubt will I, but by these tokens and by other sure evidence I know that my redeemer liveth.
This morning after weeding Mrs A’s garden I carried home a bag of moss and potential cuttings forked out of one of the flower beds. I was enjoying an after lunch coffee, alone in the house, when within ten minutes firstly our younger grandson brought his mother round to see how the painting of his toy locomotive was going; Mrs T came in from one of her little, but vital, jobs; then a woman friend with learning disabilities arrived. Grandson was soon playing with her; 90 minutes of enjoyment on all sides but exhausting.
Mrs T made another cup of tea at this point. 30 minutes of restful enjoyment.
The evening was drawing in by now, so out I went to do the minimum for the cuttings. Robins and blackbirds were singing – the fourth year our cock blackbird with white spots has been with us. The rooks and gulls flew overhead to their respective roosts, by no means quietly. Time for me to stop before the light failed.
A last peer into the pond – no frog spawn yet – and indoors to the warmth of home.
Let’s have a little poem to celebrate the great outdoors. Sadly, the number of thrushes seem to be declining fast in Kent, though I came across a thrush’s anvil yesterday; there was one in our garden, many years ago. If you never saw it, you won’t know you’ve lost it. A thrush’s anvil is the stone s/he uses to bash snails against until the flesh can be extracted. This one was on gravel, so the shells hardly showed against the pebbles, of a similar shape, size and colour to the shells, so I brought two smashed shells home. I hope the thrushes’ chicks prosper and restore their fortunes in Kent.
The poem was probably written in Florence, where Walter Savage Landor had gone after quarrelling with most of his friends and enemies in England. Robert Browning took him under his wing.
Damon was sitting in the grove With Phyllis, and protesting love; And she was listening; but no word Of all he loudly swore she heard. How! was she deaf then? no, not she, Phyllis was quite the contrary. Tapping his elbow, she said, ‘Hush! O what a darling of a thrush! I think he never sang so well As now, below us, in the dell.’
Imaginary Conversations and Poems, A Selection,by Walter Savage Landor via Kindle
I’m reminded of George’s primary school teacher, who complained that at the end of a difficult lesson when she had been introducing a new maths topic, she saw him looking out of the window. ‘There’s a female blackbird on the grass, Miss.’
When he got home, he said that he had stopped paying attention once he understood the maths, and got on with birdwatching.
We could have called this the hedge trimmer’s reward, because it was an hour’s work on the rampant ivy that brought these two creatures to light. Notice how the golden moth’s pattern breaks up its shape, and in the other picture, the grey moth matches the spider’s nest web to its left. The hedge provides a home for these creatures, away from most of their predators, so it will be trimmed, not massacred, every couple of years. More welcoming for insects and than the plain brick wall that was here when we moved in; it houses robins and blackbirds most years.
Abel was riding behind Grandad, across his favourite bridge in the old Tannery housing estate. A few yards on, he announced, ‘I saw two baby ducks.’ Grandad did not see them, but Abel missed out on the grey wagtail chick with its parents, (or was it two chicks with one parent?) by the Glebe. He missed our blackbird cock feeding a chick as big as himself on the scraps of fat fallen from the fatballs that the starlings have been telling their chicks all about, very noisily.
But we’ve all seen the baby robin who is already as tame as its parents, here perching on the bike’s handlebars. Spring is fun when you are nearly four or even nearly 70.
The Butterflies’ teacher came round after school to bring the ex-frog spawn which was ready to leave school. (The Butterflies can look forward to another eleven or twelve years of it!)
Some of the former little black dots were now hopping on and off the big flint in the middle of their tank, and the rest had legs and were losing their tails. All of them seemed happy to dive into the pond where they were laid. I’m sure more survived into froghood than if they’d stayed in the pond. Mrs Turnstone cannot blame the goldfish for predation after she took ours to her pond at work.
Mr Blackbird discovered this source of protein last year and was keeping an eye this, till the duckweed covered the surface. Now the fish ate most of that, when we had fish. As well as the weed, the frogs of all sizes have logs and rocks to hide themselves away. But can you spot the frogs in the bottom picture?
Will Turnstone 