Friday 24 July 2009

Dawn Chorus

It's very leafy where I live, especially at this time of year. We have a hedge around all three sides of our garden, which includes hazel, holly, beech and laurel. There are also many trees in our garden: a flowering cherry and a fruiting plum, a silver birch and a weeping birch, a red sycamore and several young apple trees. The surrounding gardens also have a variety of trees: from my office window I can see a willow, a copper beech and a Scots pine.

This means the area is a Mecca for birds. They nest in the hedges, the trees and the eaves of the houses. We have blackbirds and wood pigeons, song thrushes and great tits, blue tits and chaffinches, starlings and sparrows, robins and wrens. We also have rarer visitors passing through such as goldfinches, nuthatches and, once, a lesser spotted woodpecker.

My bedroom window opens onto the garden. In the spring and summer I'm happy to be woken by birdsong. As I sit here now I can hear a woodpigeon cooing, a blackbird trilling, a chaffinch chirping and, in the distance, a disgruntled crow cawing as if to protest the early hour.

I love the great range of sounds made by our British birds. But I would happily strangle the raucous feathered hooligan who has learned to be a perfect mimic of a car alarm.

8 comments:

Beleaguered Squirrel said...

Ha! Thass funny. At least it's not a chainsaw. I think.

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

I was just thinking how blissful your garden sounds, when I got to the bit about the raucous feathered hooligan. So funny to read about, not so amusing to have to listen to though!

HelenMWalters said...

The trees sound fantastic. Lucky you.

Carol said...

Hahaha, my Mum has one that sounds like a wolf whistle!! We were staying with her for the weekend and I woke up completely convinced that she had a builder in her garden!!

C x

Queenie said...

Glad it made you giggle, folks! Helen, the trees are gorgeous, and I am indeed a very lucky woman.

Pat said...

You don't get away scot free m'lady. Appetites whetted we await the pics:)

WV is dowifit - surely that's a bird?

Queenie said...

Pat: 'WV is dowifit' - I think you accidentally typed that in handwriting, could I have a translation please? ;-)

Pat said...

Word verification is dowifit.
It's the way I tell'em:)