Spring garden

The sun is out and it isn't quite as cold as it has been. Husband is off watching Charlton play so I thought it was a good time for some garden spring-cleaning.

There is the most enormous pile of dead cuttings; my lovely Uncle helped us severely prune some bushes/shrubs last year, unfortunately the chainsaw gave out before we were done, so we've been letting the discarded tree limbs dry out to dispose of them. This has been immensely popular with the foxes, squirrels and garden birds - but all good things must come to an end. I spent half an hour trying to trim away; unfortunately this seems to be a two person job as I have to sit down to do this and it means I can't really reach any twigs to chop.

Big twig pile

My little pile

There are all sorts of wildlife out in the garden - mostly the birds, I noticed Mr Blackbird hopping around where I'd been chopping up twigs to see what bugs I had disturbed. The little birds have been out a lot today as the parakeets and the pigeons were taking the morning off. As soon as I went out in the garden a heap of pigeons appeared to see if I was going to put some food out (or not).

The garden wildlife are now stepping up into the 'eating us out of house and home' phase of the year. The bird seed (etc.) comes via Amazon's "Spend and Save" but isn't due for another month... left to their own devices the birds and squirrels would get through that a long time before four weeks elapse.

Unfortunately the only thing that isn't blooming (quite literally) in the garden are plants. The hydrangea seems to have died over the last year - I bought MiL a new one for Mother's Day but the old one has to be removed first. The crocuses and daffodils that once used to grace the garden are a thing of the past as between them the squirrels and foxes have dug up and consumed all the bulbs.

As good as it gets is the plum tree, bursting with blossom and it will be bursting with plums later in the year which fall to the ground and get eaten by the avian population.

Green Feathered Hooligans

A peculiar addition to the wildlife of South London are the 'colonies' of feral rose ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri)

Nobody is quite sure how these colourful birds (native to India) came to be found living in the trees and gardens of London; popular theories include an escape from Ealing Studios during filming or an accident with a shipping crate at Heathrow Airport.

However they came to become part of the landscape in London they are now viewed by many as an invasive species (up there with grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed) and like other invading species they have now got enough of a foothold in the ecosystem that they are probably here to stay.

The parakeets also featured in a post on My Family and Other Animals.

My other animals... part 3

A few weeks ago I was writing about one of my favourite books "My Family and Other Animlas" - so here is the second of a series of posts about my "other animals".

Pigeons are a huge part of our garden community. Half a dozen years ago we had a couple of feral pigeons (nicknamed by MiL as Anthony and Cleopatra) they were easy to spot with very distinctive plumage. Over time we have now collected a huge community.

We have a couple (they are a couple as well) of coloured doves. We also have a few extremely large wood pigeons (they are really rather large birds) and an absolute gang of pigeons. Some of these are kept by a neighbour at the bottom of our garden, some of these are feral, some of these are rock pigeons and some even now are the brown feral pigeons often seen over in the City of London.

This is part of the pigeon tribe (mostly the rock pigeons) waiting for feeding time sitting on top our bedroom roof; you can hear them inside doing war dances (!)

This is one of the over-large wood pigeons. The are the absolute epitome of bird-brains! I have watched on walk up to the peanut feeder, wander around, work out that to reach he needs to climb on the brick, get a peanut, go back to the ground to eat the peanut... and then start the whole process of how to reach the peanut over again!



The collared doves are always hanging out as a couple, they look our for each other and raise their families together



My mother has a delightful family of collared doves, they bought up their brood in a rather precarious nest behind the satellite dish on the house next door, and used to leave the babies on the patio table whilst they were off hunting.




Babies resting in the sun and parent keeping an eye on the rest of the world.

My other animals... part 2

A few weeks ago I was writing about one of my favourite books "My Family and Other Animlas" - so here is the second of a series of posts about my "other animals".

Recently voted as Britain's National Bird in an RSPB poll, we have a delightful family of robins living in our garden. From slim birds to little round birds their cheery red breasts are a common sight in the garden. They are quite happy to share the garden with all comers - especially the human gardeners!

As Husband or MiL (or even sometimes me) make our way around the garden trimming and weeding and even moving the lawn the little robins will follow on behind to see what is turned up from our activities hoping for scuttling buts, or maybe a worm, or just some handy nesting bits. They often sit on the edge of the compost bin to make sure "waste not, want not" nothing good gets by them!




This is one of the little round red-breasted tennis balls on wings! Making to most of the seed dropped by the pigeons (who are very messy eaters!),

My other animals... part 1

A few weeks ago I was writing about one of my favourite books "My Family and Other Animlas" - so here is the first of a series of posts about my "other animals".

First up the Parakeets. Until I lived in the London suburbs I'd always assumed that the parakeets were an urban legend, or at least strongly exaggerated. Turns out not to be the case. There are anywhere between three and seven of them knocking around in our corner of South East London. They are social, noisy, argumentative and (quite honestly) usually referred to me as the Green Feather Hooligans.

They do behave delightfully like the parrots and tropical birds you see in aviaries. Shown here with one hanging upside down to attack the coconut fat ball and the other waiting his turn patiently (ish).




You can see three of them here sitting in a tree in our garden. Three seems to be about the most that will share a tree at once. The preferred roosting patterns involve sitting in trees that are several gardens removed, two or three in a tree, and squawking loudly and enthusiastically. Then all the squawking fails they take to the wing and chase each other around the trees. So sort of game of tag on the wing (!)