WINGS AND THINGS

I have just been out after breakfast and the house is surrounded by a whirl of swallow and house martin wings. They are hawking around the garden, zooming up under the eaves and chattering like a bus full of schoolchildren. On the wire by the gate I counted 24 swallows. It is only August yet they are gathering, ready for the long trek south.

The feeders - these are by the shed - are inundated by tits and finches and it is getting expensive feeding the hungry masses. Collared Doves, pigeons, dunnocks and chaffinches patrol underneath for titbits until Mr Pheasant (the bruiser) comes striding along.

Autumn is appearing in the trees as well - some leaves are beginning to yellow and the field maple, especially, is reddening.

Two days ago I went in search of a couple of small courgettes for dinner and noticed that the grass had grown over one corner of the bed.

Parting the grass revealed three 4lb marrows (about 2 kilo each). Marrow and ginger jam and marrow chutney time is upon us.

I do like squashes but all the butternuts have been rabbited - perhaps they are less bristly than the courgettes?

Back to birds - one problem we do have with the birds is that, to see them at the feeders from inside the house requires windows - with glass that the birds do not see. Every so often they scatter in a raucous panic - ?cat. ?sparrowhawk, ? nothing but a twitchy greenfinch.

When then do some of the birds

fly into the windows. In the past, as I have previously mentioned, we have had fatalities. This week both birds survived. They had hit the glass in the open door from the kitchen onto the garden and been stunned. Both tiny things needed picking up at releasing.

You can see them, bills open as they gasp for air, recovering from being dazed.

The coal tit on the wall hung

there for about five minutes after being let go - then headed straight for the feeders again.

The strimmed banking makes me realise how few shrubs we have there. R is all for growing lots of cuttings but that will take years before we have adequate cover. The old credit card will have to go to work, I think.

So, as the lethargy of shortening days takes its toll on the willingness to labour on the soil, and the falling of rain soaks the enthusiasm of this gardener I will take my leave of this blog for another day.