Hello. This blog is a few nature notes about my garden this year. We keep a record of the birds, butterflies, mammals (except cats, grrr!) dragonflies, etc. that visit the garden. I’m not used to writing a blog that is actually about something, but I wanted to write one that has universal interest to my community, and uncontroversial enough to be shared with Community Matters! No politics or existential angst about the state of the world.

Our garden is a fairly typical Gloucester Road garden in size. In diversity of plant species it is unusual. There are at least twelve different plants in the tiny front garden, and many many more in the back garden. All the plants need to pull their weight, with value as food plants, nitrogen fixers, and in a few cases purely for beauty. I added a very small lawn this year for handstands, etc. There is also a pond and two areas where we can sit and eat and watch.

We have recorded twenty-one different birds, seven different butterflies, three mammals and one sort of dragonfly. Last year there were also damsel flies. I have not been able to work out why they are absent this year. Also absent this year were the common blue, the brimstone and the meadow brown butterfly. There are three birds that we missed from last year too, the rook, the chiffchaff and the feral pigeon. This is probably less significant. Our method of counting is necessarily haphazard, looking when we look, from the kitchen or bedroom window, when walking through the garden and when sitting in the garden. However it is consistently haphazard. I’m sure the chiffchaff has been here, we just didn’t see it. The rook was a little away from home.

Also a little away from home, but the absolute highlight of the year, were three mallards who spent the day on the pond at the end of April.Two drakes and a duck, they plashed around for most of the day. It has just occurred to me that they probably ate all the damselfly larvae. Well, they could have! These mallard were one of three species that are new this year. We also saw a swallow – it didn’t land but it came into our airspace – this counts – and applies to swifts, which are regular visitors, often flying low over the garden in the summer, and the occasional red kite that stoops down for bacon rind. The other newcomer was a sparrowhawk, which flashed through on two occasions.

I will end with the complete list. The only species to be here every week are the house sparrows and the woodpigeons. The sparrows are flighty, and very hard to count. The note we make is of the highest number seen all at once. Seventeen is the maximum we have recorded, although I’m sure there are more. They are a delight, competing on the bird feeders or exploring on the ground for seeds, rushing off en masse when something spooks them, then very soon returning.

I think the woodpigeons live here and raise their young somewhere nearby. They do a lot of canoodling. I also think we have a resident robin, and a dunnock. The dunnock used to be called a hedge sparrow and looks very similar to the house sparrows. It is a quieter, solitary bird with a thin beak. Occasionally in the spring it will sit at the top of the laburnum tree and sing.

The full list is as follows: house sparrow, woodpigeon, collared dove, blackbird, jackdaw, bluetit, starling, magpie, robin, goldfinch, swift, dunnock, great tit, wren, carrion crow, long-tailed tit, coal tit, sparrowhawk, red kite, swallow, mallard. The butterflies are small white, large white, red admiral, comma, gatekeeper, holly blue, and peacock. The mammals are a hedgehog and a grey squirrel. I’ll let you guess the third.

So that completes an annual round up of the birds in our garden. My hope is that the diversity of plants in the garden helps to add to the variety of wildlife, encouraging an interconnected, balanced environment where many species can flourish. Whatever it does, it provides wonderful observatory for us all the year.

Happy Christmas to everyone, and sincere good wishes for a wonderful new year!