Thursday 24 July 2014

A bird in the hedge


The hedge that skirts our semicircular flower bed is horribly overgrown. It's far too tall and bows outwards like a hedge that has eaten rather too many cakes and chips recently. Earlier in the year I fretted about this - it limits the sunshine that reaches that side of the garden and looks wayward. As the Spring progressed though, I began to notice evidence of several birds' nests. A pair of blackbirds, thrushes, great tits and robins were making very regular visits to and from the hedge, accompanied by the telling high pitched sound of baby birds begging for food.

My hunch was correct. I haven't managed to track the nests down but a second set of robin fledglings emerged from the hedge last week. They are perching on the willow wigwam up which the sweet peas are growing and being visited by their parents with snacks of flies and woodlice. I'm very fond of robin fledglings. They have a very fluffy fuzzy feather on each side of their head and are speckly conker brown. Here's one of their parents:



Yesterday I walked up the garden to the shed and heard tiny alarmed cheeps before seeing two miniscule slightly fluffy wren fledglings sitting on the deckchair. They scrambled into the hedge in alarm. They were smaller than Cadbury's Creme Eggs. Fledglings don't stray far from the nest they have just left so I can add another species to the birds-in-the-hedge list. It seems there's a sort of nest village behind the overgrown privet. There are birdy benefits to neglecting the loppers.

1 comment:

  1. I like your pictures and I hope you can post again. The wren is so cute!!

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