The Slow Arrival of Spring

I search for signs of Spring from the first of January.  But it can’t be hurried.  And because it arrives slowly, it’s all the more reviving.

 

The light glinting off a crowd of snowdrops under the hawthorn hedge flashes a signal of hope, like kids bouncing sun light off a shard of mirror and on top of the hedge a blue-grey dunnock throws back its head and pours out its sweet scratchy song.  I take my tea and go into the garden, bending low to the soil to look for more signs.  Little spears of crocus flowers thrust up through soggy soil, tiny primrose petals are ready to ping open, celandine leaves are glossy and polished ready for the Spring Show.  

 

As February blows in, my sparrows get fidgety too.   Via the nest box camera, I watch the male spring-cleaning, dragging out beak-fulls of old nesting material.  He struggles with a huge tangle of straw, heaving the lot up to the entrance hole but it won’t go through and he only manages to pull out a few strands.  But he’s determined and finally the box, which the female has roosted in all winter, is empty.  We fixed a camera next to ‘Sparrow Heights,’ the three roomed apartment block on the side of the house.  On the monitor, I watch the birds flitting in and out, choosing their apartments, chirping loudly when they’ve selected the one they want.

Now it’s March and daffodils wave as I tread the earth lightly on my way home from Dru Yoga at Theatre Clwyd.  The rhubarb’s showing tantalizing glimpses of ruby red stalks. I’ve seen skinny lambs, acid yellow primroses,
heard my blackbird sing under the darkening sky and a song thrush in his usual tree belt out his aria as I pass each morning.

I’ve done some great ‘slow’ things whilst waiting for spring.  I spent a Saturday with North East Wales Wildlife in Rhydymwyn, furtling about in mouldy barn owl pellets looking for the remains of harvest mice.  I learned how to recognise a vole's skull from a shrew's and became adept at telling species apart by removing their molars. Soon I was calling out, ‘field vole, bank vole, common shrew,’ like I’d been doing it for years!  No harvest mice but it certainly beat doing the weekly shop. 

At Theatre Clwyd, I watched a spell-binding production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, where I heard ‘the dew falling,’ and ‘the sleep of birds.’

Last week, back at the Theatre, I experienced a ‘Picnic Play.’  In the Clwyd Room we watched the cast of Under Milk Wood read Tom Stoppard’s ‘Inspector Hound,’ whilst we munched sandwiches and slurped tea.  We could’ve sat at the feet of the cast on the cushions and blankets provided.  A few did, but most laid their food out on tables, jars of mustard and sandwiches wrapped in rustling tin foil. It was great fun. Their next picnic play is on March 21^st. 

www.newwildlife.org.uk    www.newwildlife.wordpress.com

www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk

www.druworldwide.com

www.mammal.org.uk  

 

 

A Good Crop

After a slow, shivery start to summer, a heat wave and now torrents of rain, my little veg patch is exploding with
courgettes, peas, kale, swedes and runner beans.  By far the most successful crop in my garden this season though is Passer domesticus - sparrows to you and me.  It's hard to count them as they are never still for long enough but yesterday I got up to 26 before they all zoomed off to the hawthorn hedge crèche for a rest and a squabble. 

They hurtle about the garden in a big gang, up to mischief, like the urchins from 'Angels with Dirty Faces'. They eat their way through the six port seed feeder in a day and when that's empty they start eating the fresh leaves from my peas, despite two scarecrows, a row of Buddhist prayer flags and a windmill that spins very fast.



This box has held three broods of sparrows....so far.

Slum Bird Millionaire

It’s budget day. When the chancellor opens his red box, we won’t be getting richer, times are hard.  There’s a letter from my bank saying thanks for lending us all your money but we’re now going to give you less for it.  Sorry, but times are hard. 

Today is World Sparrow day and times are hard for house sparrows too.  Their numbers have fallen by 70% in the UK, but they are in decline all over the world. 

I read a headline in a newspaper on line, ‘Homeless in Mumbai.’  It wasn’t referring to humans but to the plight of house sparrows.  The article told how conservationist Mohammed Dilawar has designed artificial nests and feeders so that the vanishing sparrows return to Mumbai.  He was also the man instrumental in declaring March 20^th World Sparrow Day.   

The authorities in Delhi have adopted the house sparrow as the state bird in a bid to halt any further decline in their numbers.  ‘We will take steps to ensure that the sparrow returns, feels safe and is able to live peacefully in the city,’ said a Chief Minister.  What a noble undertaking.  All over India, people are being encouraged to ‘chirp for the sparrow’ and become ‘sparrow supporters.’ You can read their poems and stories about sparrows on the web site www.worldsparrowday.org .

Birds are major indicators of the health of our environment, which is why people spend so much time and energy monitoring, counting and ringing them.   If a bird once so common is now in such serious trouble, something’s out of kilter out there.  Their drastic decline has to have an impact on us. 



Male sparrow in the box on the end of my house

I switch on my TV, not to see what comes out of the Chancellor's red box, but to see what’s going on in the bird box on the end of my house.  The sparrows are busy.  Their nest is coming along nicely.  He flies in with a piece of dry grass, faffs and fiddles, pushing it into place with his beak. 

 She appears at the entrance with a feather and he flies off, squeezing past her.   Sometimes they don’t bring any material into the nest, just fix and tidy what’s already there, forcing the scratchy grass into a soft circle by turning their plump bodies around and around.  



One in, one out






I hope bird boxes don’t count when it comes to the bedroom tax because I have ten.  They are all occupied though.

Charlie has been meaning to re-cement the ridge tiles, too late Charlie!

How Long Does A Sparrow Sleep?

At 3.30pm I tuned my telly to BBTV (that's Bird Box TV), sat with a cup of  tea and waited.  My bird tumbled in to her box at precisely 3.50pm.  She fidgeted for a bit, preened, threw out some poo then settled in the corner, face to the wall, head tucked in over her shoulder, so that her feathers made a pretty swirl.  She looked like a wall nut whip with a tail.
I changed channels periodically throughout the evening and watched her sleeping.  You'd think it would be hard to see bird's breaths, but she breathes deeply and her tiny body pulses in and out with some force. 
The following morning, I took more tea into the living room and settled down to watch her wake.  It was getting light by 7.30 but she didn't move.  At 7.45 am, she woke suddenly, shook herself and immediately returned her head to its snoozing position with such force I felt sure she must've stabbed herself with her beak.  She obviously wasn't ready to face the world.  Perhaps she was dreaming of being chased by a sparrowhawk?  Do sparrow's dream?  Then at 7.50 am, she woke, and without any preening or shaking of feathers, just jumped up to the entrance hole and left.  

So, how long does a sparrow sleep?  16 hours!  Even longer than me in the winter!

Watching Sparrows Sleep

Have you ever watched a sparrow sleeping?  We have a nest box with a camera and the pictures are beamed into our living room.  The female sparrow has the box, he doesn’t get a look in.  I think he sleeps on our security light outside the backdoor.  We go the long way around to gain access to the back garden after 4pm, when he’s settled on the light.  Of course, we have removed the bulb.  Shame she doesn’t let him in to snuggle up. 

Before I go to bed I watch her on my telly.  Her tiny body pulses in and out.  It’s very soporific and I feel my heart beat slow to the same rhythm.  Sometimes she wakes up suddenly, as if from a chasing-blue-tits dream.  She looks around like she doesn’t know where she is , then she preens, yawns, stretches out one twiggy leg and tucks her tiny head back under her wing. 

World Sparrow Day is in March (there’s a web site).  Sparrows have lived alongside humans longer than any other wild birds.  But, they’re in serious decline.  Once they were so numerous they were regarded as pests, raiders of cereal crops.  During the reign of Elizabeth the First, farmers could take the heads of sparrows to the parish church where they would be paid a bounty.  During the First World War, Rat and Sparrow Clubs were formed ‘in order to save food for human consumption’.   Hundreds of thousands were killed.  3d was paid for a fully fledged sparrow, 2d for an unfledged bird and 1d for an egg.  But in the towns and cities, the disappearance of the horse in favour of the car had even more of an impact as sparrows could no longer rely on pinching the horses feed or sorting through the droppings for undigested grain. 

Sparrows  have continued to decline and are now on the Conservation Red List meaning they are a species in need of urgent action.  The authorities in Delhi have adopted the house sparrow as the state bird in a bid to halt any further decline in their numbers.  ‘We will take steps to ensure that the sparrow returns, feels safe and is able to live peacefully in the city,’ said a Chief Minister.  

I like that they want the sparrow to ‘feel safe’.  My bird looks safe in her box.  And in the morning, she won’t have far to go for food, though she’ll need to keep one eye out for the sparrowhawk.

Passer domesticus  

                                          

Scruffy urchins of the bird world,

street-wise, cock-sure

surviving by your wits

and your hard-faced cheek.

Angels with Dirty Faces,

In your crop-eating-outlaw days

you had a price on your head,

were picked off for pennies

by persecuting posses.

Then you learned which side your

bread was buttered and muscled in

on small town gardens.

You were chased away from

feeders by people who preferred

the glamour of goldfinches,

the ballyhoo of blue tits.

But now you’re rather rare

and they want you back,

will gladly sacrifice

their finely tilled seed beds

to your early evening dust bath.

Smelly Birds

According to the Rare Bird Alert web site, there are 1000 waxwings in Kyle of Lochalsh, an American Buff-Bellied Pipit in County Down, a Lesser Yellowlegs in Lancashire and Long-Billed Dowitchers in Gloucestershire.

I think I should report that there are 15 cocky sparrows on my bird feeder, 6 gaudy goldfinches squabbling over nyjer seed, 3 blackbirds dribbling a piece of apple across the lawn.

Today the frost is harsh and I scatter seed and best-cake crumbs with frivolous abandon.

To wake up my writing brain, I sometimes play the senses game - name at least 5 sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes as quick as I can.  But today I struggled with smell.  No matter how hard I sniff, it's difficult to catch the scent of things when they're wrapped in ice.

If birds had smells..........a blackbird would smell of damp earth, sparrows would smell of toast, goldfinches would smell of Tutti-fruiti, like Opal Fruits - strawberry, lemon, lime.  Chaffinches would smell like just-dug-up potatoes and robins like Christmas tangerines.