Yesterday may have been summer, so I cut the lawn. Well, I call it a lawn but it was looking more like a small scruffy meadow as the wet weather had been good for grass growth but bad for grass cutting.
I noticed there were lots and lots of insects in the grass – and I felt a bit guilty about destroying their habitat.
I disturbed a meadow brown, one of the few I have seen this year, and the first in the garden this year. And a large white flew past in the distance (I’m pretty sure it was, but it is so long since I saw any butterflies maybe I identified it wrongly).
There were a few swifts overhead and even fewer house martins. Two jackdaws sat on a chimney pot and called – it looked as though they were shouting down the chimney. There were quite a few goldfinches, the much superior relative of the chinless linnet, singing from roofs or calling in a charming way.
The rotary mower kept getting stuck with the size of the task I was setting it. I needed a more industrial tool to get the job done quickly, so I got the job done slowly. Unfortunately I scalped the top of an ants nest in the ‘lawn’. White ant eggs were exposed and red workers scurried around carrying off eggs. I was sorry about it but it wasn’t deliberate and the ants looked like they were going to cope quite well. I watched their busy business for a while and then emptied the bin of grass cuttings.
As I returned to the mower I noticed a male blackbird was feasting on ants’ eggs. I was happy to watch it for several minutes.
Peck, peck, peck it went. It looked as though it was really enjoying the open space of the newly cut lawn and the unexpected provision of food. Birds’ faces don’t have expressions but it would be easy to believe that it was looking pleased. I felt a bit less guilty about the ants nest.
Aren’t blackbirds glorious birds? They are so lovely – and such great songsters. So I couldn’t help remember a conversation of a couple of days ago when I was castigated by a birder friend for choosing linnet as my least favourite bird only to be stunned when he chose blackbird as his least favourite. How crazy is that?
And this male blackbird had just a little patch of white on its head, under the eye, and another pale patch on its breast. It was a partial albino bird – not much white, but a little. I’m not sure whether it’s true but I’ve heard several times that there were more albino blackbirds in the days when sparrowhawks were rare or absent because of pesticides. As sparrowhawks returned then any odd-looking blackbirds were the first to be taken out. Could be true – I don’t seem to see as many partial albinos as I seem to remember.
Will the sun shine today?
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Interesting about the albino blackbirds-we have a few around here, but we also have sparrowhawks! The garden is full of blackbirds, and my children have named the one that sings down the chimney every evening ‘Dave’. No dea why, but we all call him that now! Such busy, cheery birds. Definitely one of my favourites, watching me when I work in the garden, clearing up any insects when I’ve been digging, and then checking the lawn for anything to eat when it’s been cut.
Emma – thanks, Emma, for a lovely comment and give my regards to Dave!
Will do!!
I have just done a piece for ‘Bird Watching’ magazine. Do you know the annual turn over for gardening in the UK is £5 Billion [Yes £5 Billion a year] spent on grass cutting, flowers, vegetables, maintenance etc. And does Mark want lovely straight lines with short grass that encourages mosses and suffers in a drought [some chance this year!]. Bird Watching magazine are running a campaign called ‘Keep Britain Messy’ which is designed to allow parts of your garden to hold a bigger proportion of wildlife and as lawns can do so much more there is a good chance that an area of grass does not need cutting completely as the ants nest needs ‘Marking’ out so the next cut goes around it. And what about that patch of Catears growing there. yes another patch to leave and soon you have a mosaic of grassland with paths around it so you can still enjoy the rest of the garden.
John – very good points. And very much the way that my messy garden is already managed. A bit more messiness in our gardens, and a bit more messiness in the countryside, would both be good for wildlife.
I was already feeling guilty now you are making me feel worse. We arrived at our French place last week to find our grassy areas knee high a dna good display of flowers too. As usual I decided to cut it so the 1 acre garden “looked good”.
As I began work clouds of butterflies lifted in confusion – Scarce Swallowtails, Great Banded Graylings, Cleopatras, Berger’s Clouded Yellows etc. etc. With the job done only a few of these are still around. the benefactor was pair of Woodchat Shrikes which nested in the garden and are now feeding young.
I still feel I have committed a sin and you have reminded me of it. Penance awaits!
Derek – I’m sorry. I think wildlife owes you quite a lot so you probably have some credit in the bank…
“Aren’t blackbirds glorious birds? They are so lovely – and such great songsters”
There’s even more variation than you think. In addition to degrees of albinism there are migrant sub-species. The Raspberry Hawk, the Redcurrant Hawk and the Gooseberry Eagle all vist our garden, and each has its own arrival time, determined by the number of day-degrees after January 1st. They all look the same – black – and can only be distinguished by the colour of their droppings.
I’m expecting the Gert Great Blueberry Bustard any day now. It can hover when taking its prey, as never a twig is broken.
Mark you are not the only person to describe uncut areas as small scruffy meadows. Our village churchyard had a lovely area in the ancient part which was only cut once or twice ayear and there were spring flowers and later attractive grass seed heads. There was also a metre wide strip uncut along one of the boundary walls which acted as a refuge for toads, frogs, shrews, voles and slow worms.This area had remained like this for 22 years, However this year the tidy brigade on the parish council decided to change from cutting it once a year to 32 times a year. They also strimmed the metre wide strip. This is the only population of slow worms in a 20 mile radius so this is a very important isolated pocket of these lovely animals. Soon after the first weekly grass cuts dead slow worms were found . It took a visit from the police wildlifecrime officer before the parish council allowed the grass to temporarily grow long again. You can read the continuing story of these slow worms here
http://wildcaldew.wordpress.com/ on a blog i have put together just to get some publicity for them and to hopefully change the publics views about longer grassland areas
Thats so sad. Happened to me over the village churchyard where I used to live – took me years to really influence anyone, once the tidy mindset gets its claws in you are on a mountain climb. I’m not a religious person at all but I found it profoundly disturbing that a ‘Christian’ churchyard could be the scene of such wilfully unchristian behaviour. I wish you success.
Leave the linnets alone!