A heartbroken fellow chiruping on the roses (From Gazette & Herald)

A heartbroken fellow chiruping on the roses

1:51pm Wednesday 24th June 2009

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Every year, before the official start of summer, we experience the worrying time of watching baby birds leave their nests.

Our garden, which is not very large, attracts a high number of nesting birds while the house itself has encouraged house sparrows and swifts to nest under the tiles and house martins to use the underside of our eaves.

We’ve even had collared doves nesting on the extension arm of our satellite TV aerial. How on earth they managed to balance the nest upon such a narrow strut is quite beyond me, and it was even more baffling to see the eggs there, then the youngsters, without anything falling off.

In the past, we’ve had starlings nesting under some tiles, blue tits in our nest boxes or else in holes in an old wall, wood pigeons finding room in a thick conifer with sundry other species like blackbirds, robins and pied wagtails finding their own spaces. Wrens and hedge sparrows (otherwise known as hedge accentors or dunnocks) have utilised nesting sites among leafy vegetation. Happily, the birds are busy in our garden.

Having birds nesting around the house is both interesting and worrying. Certainly we can observe a variety of birds at fairly close quarters, but there is the added concern of feeling responsible for the safety of the nests and the chicks, especially when they leave the family home.

We do our best to protect our nesting birds from predators, but the sad fact is that many nests are attacked during our absence, often in the very early hours of the morning or even at night.

It is said that a marauding magpie will walk along the interior of a hedge to find every nest and take either eggs or chicks. Grey squirrels, rats and foxes are also determined predators who will raid nests. Then there are hunters like crows, various birds of prey and even herons.

And we must not forget the carnage committed by domestic cats. There is little wonder that, alongside all the other hazards, any of our nesting birds manage to successfully rear a brood.

As in previous years, we have witnessed some of the dangers to baby birds as they leave the nest, sometimes without learning to fly.

The night before writing these notes, it seemed a great tit nest had fledged because suddenly three chicks appeared, one of which collided with the window of our conservatory.

He survived and joined two siblings on a nearby rosebush, but as we watched it was clear they had just left the nest and had already learned one important lesson of life.

Mastering the art of steering on the wing was necessary – and he should have seen us. We were having a meal near that window whilst elsewhere some sunshades were closed.

Another drama happened with a family of blackbirds. The female was very tame and tended her nest with us sitting only a couple of yards (2m) away.

The male was a caring dad and together they reared their brood in a rosebush on our garage wall directly behind one of our seating areas. He fed her while she was brooding and then they both helped to feed the two chicks. Then suddenly the chicks disappeared before they had learned to fly.

We think one took refuge in our beech hedge – we could hear chirping from within, a sign to the parents that the infant wanted food.

However, another hid behind the greenhouse among compost bins and stacks of plant pots. Lacking the ability to fly and minus proper wings and tail feathers, that chick was at its most vulnerable.

We have no idea what kinds of villain lurk in that area during our absence, although we do know that a domestic cat, noted for its hunting instincts, has a regular route nearby.

To be honest, there was little we could do to protect those chicks apart from chasing off all predators. And then we found a small patch of juvenile blackbird feathers, clear evidence that one of the chicks had suffered an unpleasant end. We do not know what was guilty of the crime or what happened to the other chick.

Perhaps the saddest of this year’s dramas involved our house sparrow family. Mum and dad had successfully reared their first brood beneath the tiles of the utility room. They have used that nesting site for many years.

Then suddenly the male was all alone. What happened to his mate or his family is not known, but for several weeks he sat outside the nest and chirped, but no female arrived to cheer him up.

He remains alone as I pen these lines, a heartbroken little fellow who sits and chirps on the roses near our kitchen window. He observes our happy family routine while he has no one.

* A gremlin attacked my piece about bracken (Gazette & Herald, June 10) when a sentence said... “heather was encroaching upon 500 acres of moorland every year...” It should have said bracken was encroaching.

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