My Garden Of Earthly Delights.

This is the quiet time, around noon. A couple of young blue tits(not quite in their colours yet). A couple of coal tits, getting quite brave these days. A few great tits and a solitary wood pigeon picking over the spillage under the feeders.
Caught a young female blackbird yesterday evening and earlier this morning pinching a few of the remaining white/green gooseberries. No-one, bar myself, seems to be interested in the thick-skinned red gooseberries(wish I could remember the variety).
Sparrows must be out to lunch. Now one male blackbird at the foot of the Rowan.
The Rowan has taken a hammering this season. It may be the weather this last couple of Winters but I'm suspecting that it may have more to do with the increase in bird poop since we put up bird feeders for the first time since we moved here! Either way, it's looking a wee bit dowdy and I'm considering whether or not to pollard it or coppice it, whichever applies. Might stimulate it a bit. I'll have to research that soon. I'm reluctant to uproot it altogether(my good lady's proposal), but it's almost thirty foot high and dominating the garden somewhat! Ditto the 'christmas tree'(I really should find out it's proper name) which, although it struggled to establish when I acquired it, around five or six years ago as a chuck-away, is now around twenty foot high and thirteen to fourteen foot wide. It has long passed the practical size for hanging lights etcetera on it and is now a mowing hazard, very jaggy, ha-ha. Think I'll try cutting it back and if I can get at the leaders I'll lop them off to about the six foot mark though I fear that I may have left it a bit too long!
I'm reluctant to go at it too soon as it's become home to every sparrow in the county or, so it would seem. It's amusing to watch, whenever someone steps into the garden, how the birds are sucked into the sanctuary of its spiny depths like iron filings to a magnet.

Much Later

Seven in the evening now and the young sparrows are lined up on the garden fence getting ready to go to roost in the 'Christmas Tree' which has now had a haircut! I've taken off about two feet all round but there's still plenty of room at the 'Spuggie Hotel'. The blue tits are still hanging around. Pea-nuts for supper!
Have gotten into the habit of having my last cuppa at around this time at the garden table and am sitting with my feet up contemplating the days work and surveying my kingdom. I have a forlorn notion that one evening I might spot an owl going about it's business but tonight's too light still and the sky's darkening with a haze of drizzle. I'll have to clear up and go in soon. Not that I mind getting a wee bit damp as it'll be straight into a hot bath anyway. Another job on that never decreasing list - fix the shower!
Satisfying to reflect that, throughout the day, the birds grew more and more accepting of my presence in the garden with the tits picking away at the feeders only a few feet away from where I was working and, so long as I didn't jump around like a loony, the rest of the birds were reasonably settled in my company.
Came across a toad in the 'natural' section of the garden which reminded me of the frog I found there yesterday. I didn't bother fetching my camera for the frog but I got a few decent shots of Mr Toad.
Tit's all away now but our local great spotted woodpecker, who I haven't seen for a day or two, has dropped by for supper. Just me and him and the sparrows left with a pigeon woohooing somewhere over the fields. Aha, late callers. I see a greenfinch and a female chaffinch helping the adult sparrows, who are still up, tidying under the Rowan. Maybe I'll hang around for another wee while yet.
Wonder of wonders! The sun is trying to break through the gloom in time to go down and here's the wood-pigeon trying his luck at the pea-nut feeder. Hmm, they're not really built for that caper, are they?
I can see two fast-flying birds, maybe hawks, winging away towards Glasterlaw. I know there are goshawks over there in Montreathmont forest but it's impossible to tell in the failing light, even with binoculars.
One solitary tree sparrow having a last go at the feeders. I'll have one more fag then it's in the door.
I saw a warbler of unknown provenance a couple of days ago. It was of a light olive hue with faintly yellow notes and a lemony eye-stripe. My best guess is wood warbler but I'm not really bothered, they're so rarely seen in our garden, I'm just happy to have seen him/her at all.
What's left of my tea's cold now and the blackbird just popped into next door's leylandii, to bed I suppose, must've had enough of my goosies. Time to head off for my bath. Goodnight garden. See you in the morning.