Bathtime for Robin!

We keep this plant saucer on the deck for the cat to drink out of, but this robin decided that Flad's drinking bowl made a good bath. His 'go away and shut the bathroom door, please' expression really made me chuckle.

Devon v Hillingdon

I have just returned from a short trip to Devon. The house I stayed in used to be advertised in nature magazines as a B&B for birdwatchers and indeed there is a very good view of the various bird feeders from several windows.

I decided to list what I saw and compare it to the species that visit my own feeders. To my surprise, they were exactly the same. Chaffinches, sparrows, long tailed tits, blue tits, coal tits, robins and beneath, hoovering up the spilt seed, collared doves and wood pigeons. Interestingly, the collared dove had a more distinct neck ring and frilly-looking black and white feathers poking from beneath the wings, something I haven't noticed on the Hillingdon birds, where the darker feathers are a uniform grey colour.

However, the Hillingdon feeders scored over the Devon ones by attracting goldfinches and greenfinches, too, neither of which I saw in Devon. The Devon garden has a visiting great spotted woodpecker; so has our Hillingdon one, and we frequently have a green woodpecker drilling for ants on the lawn. There was a pheasant in the Devon garden which had flown in from the neighbouring field, but I don't think anything beats our Hillingdon sighting of a grey partridge on the deck, right outside the patio doors, two Christmases ago.

A definite win for Hillingdon, I think!

The sparrow tree

There's a tree in the next street that I christened the sparrow tree about ten years ago. It's a conifer of some sort but it's swathed in thick ivy and the sparrows love it and the entire tree is always alive with cheeps and chirps. I used to wonder how the house's inhabitants coped with having a big, dark tree so close to their front windows, and I dreaded the day when they would decide to chop it down and rob the merry band of sparrows of their habitat.

I hadn't walked that way for a week or so and today I took the long way round to the corner shop and oh woe, the ivy had been chopped off at the roots and the brown leaves hung dying in the tree. Only one or two sparrows were still cheeping. I don't know if they have nests there or if they just use it as a roosting place.

At least the tree is still there, but the cover will soon be gone and that is what sparrows need. I think the reason why there is a healthy population here is that so many people have kept their privet hedges, complete with sparrows' nests. If only the gardening magazines would decide that privet hedges were trendy again. Nothing nests in Leylandii!

Flad meets the fox again

I think they know each other quite well by now. They give each other a look, then Flad strolls nonchalantly away and goes about his catly business while the fox licks the remainder of the curry out of the plastic dish.

Frog ladder

Here is Froggy's new ladder. Hope it does the trick.

Nocturnal frog

The frog that used to live in the pond had to quit her residence because the pond liner split and all the water drained out. Yesterday, my partner relined the pond and filled it with water again. Around 9 last night, some movement turned on the security light and there was the frog, hopping back home.

New bird box

I bought two new bird boxes and asked my partner to put them up for me as he is much taller than me and handier with hammer and nails. I named the locations where I wanted them to placed - one on a tree with lots of ivy cover, and the other underneath the lip of the workshop roof, which is shielded by shrubs.

He acceded to one of my wishes and placed the robin nest box on the workshop, but the other he stuck in what in my view is the stupidest place where no small bird will ever venture: up under the plastic covering over the side path, right opposite both the door and the cat flap. What birds would want to get disturbed all the time by people barging about all the time, and a hungry cat parked beneath, staring avidly upwards?

Will any bird be daft enough to take up residence? He says he's going to make a To Let sign for it, so watch this space!