Yes, I know that picture of the flower pot was a little dull, but the pot was not dull when I watched Mrs Blackbird have a bath in it.
First, she drank, standing on the edge. Then she walked in and drank some more. Then she got down to bathing. Dipping her breast feathers in and puffing them out, waggling her tail and shimmying, dipping in her head and jittering her whole body gloriously. She stepped out and shook off. Then returned for another plunge. This was joy, sheer joy. For her, I think, as for me. She bathed three times, splashing water across the patio, before flying off, shedding diamonds.
The next day the dunnock also took a dip - I saw her drying off on the back of my garden chair. A few days later, it was the robin's turn to wash.
The squirrel laps sedately, stretching up on tip-toes to reach.
The morning before, I had watched the dunnock take a good beak-full of wool from here.
The magpies, who seem to be nesting not in the fought over nest to the left of my garden but in another one to the right, now feel just about confident enough to drink and eat mealworms.
The starlings arrive in numbers and can work through the mealworms in half an hour; through a pot of Fluttter Butter in a half a day!
And the lilac continues her return to life. Slowly, but surely, she rediscovers the art of green
I bought 'a plant' which I understand will help to clean the soil. Oh darn. What was it called?? Ah yes, Lychnis viscaria. I planted it as close to the lilac as I could - but where it would have the dappled sunlight it prefers. I also bought a Rhodiola heterodonta. This has medicinal properties - anti-stress and anti-aging, allegedly - and planted it next to the pelargonium. Apparently, it likes that. Oh, and when I was leaving work the other day, a lady said, 'Free plants! Take one!' I took a white geranium and have it in the conservatory.
I have realised that I cannot cut my hedges as the robin lives in the holly tree, the dunnocks use the right-hand hedge, and the wrens use the left-hand one. I cannot cut the grass for the dandelions and other weeds (but not the wildflowers that I hopefully flung there a few months ago). So, gardening will not happen. Just sweeping up the peanut shells and spilled seeds.
It turns out that on the Merlin app, recommended by the Cornell Ornithology Lab, you can ID birds by their songs. One five minute spell in my garden highlighted the sounds of robins, coal tits, goldfinches, greenfinches, blackbirds, blackcaps, jays (in the distance), starlings and wood pigeons.
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