Bird bonanza

I have never seen so many different species of birds in one place as I did yesterday. Seven green parakeets hung from the branches of The Singing Tree (next door's tall, slender silver birch, the topmost twig of which is the blackbird's favourite evening perch), dangling at various angles and splitting the air with their screeches. A tiny wren clung to the pond netting and took a drink. Three crows fluttered down on the wind like broken city umbrellas. A robin darted across a landing magpie's trajectory and stole its crumb. The leafless peach tree was alive with long-tailed tits. Blue tits and a great tit chattered excitedly in the tree next to them. A flock of starlings squabbled and shrilled. A pair of wood pigeons, as plump as Christmas partridges, waddled across the lawn.

The only characters missing were the sparrows. But when I went to post some cards, a privet hedge was alive with them, which made me think that it is habitat, not food, that is driving them away from our cities. When I was a child, everyone had a privet hedge and ivy was not stripped from trees and gutters, and thick hedge, ivy and old iron gutters were where sparrows regularly nested. Luckily, Hillingdon still hangs onto a large number of privet and thorn hedges and so the Hillingdon sparrow population is a healthy one. I counted a flock of 14 pecking up crisp crumbs on the pavement in Polehill Road last summer. Their cheery chirping really raised my spirits.