Flown the nest

One day last week, or maybe longer ago, I became aware that the bluetits sounded more like adult birds quarrelling and chattering.

It was a momentary recognition and no sooner had I walked from the room than it was hastily tucked away in the dim archives of my mind.

Then last weekend, I realised that I have not seen the parents as they squeeze in and out of the boarding beside my window, to and fro with meals of bugs to satisfy their insatiable infants. No squeals of “ME ME ME”.

 They have all flown and I hope they are still nearby as I need them.

 They consume the insects who are hell bent on eating my vegetables, and who join the throngs whose sole aim in life is to annoy the cow, causing such misery at milking time, with the cows tail swishing to swat them and making her kick at them, spilling milk over the dusty ground and often over me.

I have a family of Bluetits living in my bedroom wall.

A while ago I spied the adults  landing on the top of a downpipe which had become detached from it’s mooring and couldn’t work out where they were planning their home. Once it had occured to me that they might all get washed away if we had a real downpour, I re-attached the pipe but they had obviously already found the hole in the wall where the lapboard had lifted, the downpipe was just a landing board.

Now the babies are beginning to get more noisy as their vocal cries for food are  being rewarded and the pitch of the cries have come down to a level which is easy to hear, tho’ easy to miss if engrossed in something else. At first the cries were so high pitched as to be nearly inaudible so I am not sure when they hatched. Anyway the adults are spending their days busily searching all the cobwebbed undersills and crannies around the walls and windows  of the house and places around the garden.

Nesting birds are a very welcome addition to my patch. We have ash and sycamore trees which line the boundary and spread a sticky residue along the outhousing from where blackfly seem to permeate and then move on to my veg patch.

 Last year, unbeknown to us we had a family of wrens in the garden. One morning we saw them just as their children had fledged. They practised flying around using a variety of objects and buildings to provide landing pads. We watched for a while, admiring their skills and feeling honoured that we could witness this sight. Then to our horror, Tactless the cat ran out and caught one of the young, we grabbed the cat but all too late as we examined the bird, it was limp and dead, but worse was to come as another birdchild flew straight at the cat and met its end. For us a whole morning was ruined, but for that family, a whole lifetime wasted.

 This time I will be much more watchful of  the damned cats.