There is one good thing about autumn and winter in Garden65 - the little birds come back.
Occasionally a gang of blue tits rush through chirping to each other, pecking at minuscule insects, and then off again. And silence returns ... apart from the sound of the man with the circular saw. Why is there always a man with a circular saw? Or leaf blower? Or drill? Men do like to make noise. When was the last time you heard a woman outside? Interesting isn't it, when you think about it. Men are such noisy creatures.
Today over the sound of some distant tree surgeons, and the obligatory circular saw (where does that eager joiner live?!) a tiny little bird (probably male) trilled it's little heart out.
Those of my many readers (!) who live in rural or semi-rural places just don't know the pleasure and relief the sound of a real bird gives to a city dweller. There are always magpies, and recently parakeets, but these birds don't sing. It's the sweet tiny ones that are the proper birds. They come into the suburbs (though not into my garden) to have their chicks and then leave for the summer. Everyone goes: the starlings that sound like seagulls, the 'weeder weeder' bird (yet to be identified), even the overhead swifts disappear eventually. And I'm left with the men and their machines.
Goodness, I've just realised I haven't heard a blackbird for months. Where have they gone?
So when a tiny brown blob starts singing in the tree my heart sings too. Nature is back.
I think it was a wren this time.
My daughter was telling me she had just put a wash on that needed to be dry by tonight or all hell would be let loose, so I couldn't focus completely on the chirpy little brown guy.
But he was loud and cocky so I guess he was.
It's the robins I'm looking forward to. When they turn up the magic begins.
