Print this page using your browser menu option, then click here to return

Birding in April 2011

Like many of you Julie and I took part in the RSBP big garden watch. We have now put away our pencils, notebooks and bird books and have reverted back to the simple joys of watching our garden visitors as opposed to counting them. Here at Bromsash, we carry out our separate garden bird watch in early March and by our accounts, our feathered friends appear to have coped with the winter rather well. Such good news, of course, is entirely due to the kindness and thoughtfulness of all of you who put out food and water when it mattered most.

By now many pairs of birds have begun constructing a nest. All over our gardens and farmland, from mud in the herbaceous borders to grass cuttings, old leaves to moss and even my hair clippings are being moved by dozens of busy bills and used as building materials.

Sometimes it is tempting to view nests as 'homes', where birds live, come back from work and put their feet up. But in reality, a nest is a dangerous place, a potential trap. Once linked to one, birds that are normally highly mobile, evasive and unpredictable become much more calculable and vulnerable to predators. But of course, a nest is essential. If it does nothing else, it keeps all the eggs together, so the parent birds know where they are, and where they should focus their attentions.

A nest can be dominating and obvious, like our parish church, a centre of the community that we can see. Or, more frequently it will be hidden from view and accessible only through some secret pathway.

Carrion Crows are makers of the parish church type, placing a robust stick structure commandingly high in a tree. But very few small birds build high above ground, despite a widespread perception that they use the trees. In spring and summer, the thickest greenery is found between the garden floor and a person's head height and, in consequence, so are most of the nests - Blackbirds in hedges, Greenfinches in shrubs, Wrens in ivy, Robins in banks on the ground, Woodpeckers in holes.

We may find birds' choices of sites strange at times. We put up an 'ideal' bird box last year and so far it has been rejected by various birds, whereas other sites have been used which we thought unsuitable.

That is one of the delights of watching birds, with their wild ways unsullied by our preconceptions.

D.H.