These two short pieces were originally published back in May 2021 – as a part of my What are you looking at? (WAYLA?) newsletter – which was long before the RSPB et al changed their advice about feeding the birds in spring. Nevertheless I hope you will enjoy a vignette on bird life at this time of year from my garden when I still lived in Kent and also my musings on the joy of looking at things in, and inspired by, nature. I have made some minor edits and additions, but otherwise they are reproduced as they were.

Party time?

The rate and regularity of visits from our garden birds seems to now be operating at max. The birds are stuffing their beaks, drinking and washing in the birdbath and then gathering whatever they can find to take away for hungry chicks. There is such an urgency to it. As if they know how short spring is. Of course it is really the urgency of life itself. The vitality and energy of creating new life. The drive to protect it and to become an ancestor. All driven by instinct and unsullied by ego.

It’s such a joy to watch the birds at this time and to play a very small part in the drama by putting out food for them. The advice used to be not to feed birds all year round, but that is no longer the case. The proof is how much more bird food I get through at this time of year compared with winter. Today for example I put out one of those suet-filled coconut shells – which would normally last the birds a week. At this time of year I’ll need to put out another one tomorrow.

 

Natural food sources are also exploited, although the very dry weather might have reduced what’s available. Nevertheless I have seen the male blackbird plunge into the bushes under my kitchen window, seemingly in search of live morsels. Blue tits move quickly, searching all over the bay tree, reminding me of how they used to be known as titmice.

Woodpigeons forage in corners of the garden they don’t usually trouble – and indeed they don’t really trouble the garden at all in the winter months. Woodies are a spring visitor for us, along with magpies, crows – and even feral pigeons, which we tolerate but cage the bird table from. That said, there is one that stands out for the white piping it has on its left wing but which is absent from its right. It’s in the shape of a tick and so the poor bird is known as Nike. (It’s alright, it thinks it’s named for the Greek goddess of victory not the clothing brand.)

I know it’s not a party for them, and the raggedy appearance of so many birds at the end of the breeding season always suggests worn out parents to me, but when my garden is this busy with visitors it feels like a celebratory gathering. Which, in many ways, it is.

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What are you looking at?

It’s the name of my newsletter of course. Even so I’m struck by how often the question comes to mind and how the things which most inspire me to look – really look – are the works of nature. It was the reflection of the teasel which caught my eye here, for example.

And I have lost count of the hours I spent looking down at the rocks below the surface of the water, not to mention the colours, in the spot pictured below.

I took that photo on Skomer Island nearly 25 years ago but it’s a scene that made such an impression on me that I can bring it to mind as if it were yesterday, without needing to see the picture.

This seems like a kind of magic, yet all it takes to conjure it up in my memory is for me to have looked at the beauty of nature. I suppose I didn’t know that at the time though – and so I tried to capture it on film* – but at least that means I can share it with you now. Although it really doesn’t do the colours justice! (*Yes I mean actual film. The picture was scanned from a printed photo.)

I suppose it is the magic of nature that makes us want to try and capture it and hold it forever and whether by photo, painting, drawing or some other medium there is much to enjoy about such an overlap of nature and culture.