Disaster in the Garden

I was just putting away my bicycle last night, when I noticed that something about my garden just wasn't looking right. Being dark, I couldn't immediately figure it out, until I was standing in the doorway.

My buddleia had been hacked down.

This is the tall, lovely buddleia that my sparrows sat in a chirped outside my window while using it for feeding and nesting material, that a seven spot ladybird was hibernating in, that butterflies and bees visit in summer, and one day a glorious migrant hawker sat on the purple flowers like the lord of all.

And now it's gone, chopped down presumably by my Polish neighbours for reasons of overhanging their garden, or blocking their sun. It would have been as well, alas, but they could have asked me!

They've been there over a year now, we've never had a problem, and we've always been friendly. Maybe their landlord told them they could. I don't know.

They dumped the remains between their garage and my shed.

My mum and sister have reassured me that it will grow back quickly, with renewed vigour, but still! Where are my cheery little spuggies going to perch on their way up to their nests? I'm not going to be able to watch them in the morning any more.

All for a bit of bloody sun.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.02.16

I'm only a poor little sparrow

Since all the holly berries have been scoffed by various greedy blackbirds and the odd woodpigeon, the garden isn't looking terribly festive. This contrasts with last year, when it seemed like I had two feet of snow and ice and some cheery robins making the place at least vaguely like it could have come from a christmas card.

Albeit, a really really downbeat one.

Now, as regular viewers will know, I've got various busted and painful legs at the moment, so my usual runs have been curtailed in favour of walks that don't really cover as much ground. Add to this the fact that the whole world has seemed suffused in a grey clag of drizzle when I have managed to get out, and it hasn't seemed a very colourful or lively environment I've been trecking through.

Luckily however, the sparrows have been keeping me cheerful. Every so often, either in the little bush outside my living room window that they frequent in a squabblesome fashion, or in various trees I've seen while walkiing, a little party of sparrows will put on a cute little show for me.

They puff themselves up to keep warm, sometimes putting their heads under their heads to sleep, and gabble amongst themselves, sometimes stretching their wings out and almost giving them a casual inspection, before flitting to another branch and repeating. Sometimes they get very flighty, and do these little minuture flights, a frenzied little 18 inch flap, to get themselves warm I guess if nothing else.

And then sometimes they sit quietly, huddling against the cold, and with their plumage looking in perversely good nick for the time of year, they look like little chocolate baubles from a christmas tree.

A heartening sight in unhappy times.