June is a very busy month for our wildlife and after such a cold slow start to the year everything is happening at once.
I had planned to mention all our fabulous flowers and wildlife and the glories of our wildlife Spring – instead a small common bird just won’t let me ignore it!.
The Robin,
Last year we had scaffolding up the wall of the house and to my surprise robins were nesting on the climbing hydrangea in the middle of all the work! Rather than desert the nest the parents timed feeding the young between workmen going up and down the ladder! All five young fledged.
Now this year ‘my robins’ have chosen to nest on top of a rain butt in a very exposed site. And we have a very active, and predatory, cat. The domestic moggy is by far the worst killer of small birds we have in Britain. As I write (first week in June) the parent bird is sitting tight on the nest – at this time of year it must be a second brood - so we can only pray - and overfeed the cat!
I often have a robin ‘helping’ me in the garden and with patience you can literally get them to feed out of your hand. Robins have a very special place in our affection in Britain that goes back as far as our earliest written records – and probably for thousands of years before that – much of the continent where many birds are still shot for so called sport the robin is a very shy bird.
Les Cloutman