Suddenly, it’s winter. Three days ago in a blast of snow under a cold leaden sky, it barged in like a truculent teenager, only to be replaced in just one day by a bright afternoon sun warm enough to cause steam to rise from the wet windowsills. The sun set and when it rose again a hard frost had left behind ice rimmed foliage, a slushy surface to the pond and the most glorious diamond dew drop seed heads hanging from the panicum grasses.
Beautifully photogenic but hard on my garden’s wild creatures which have to cope with whatever conditions they are obliged to endure, no matter how quickly they change. Dunnocks creep along the path like little mice, keeping close to the undergrowth, hopping up occasionally to peck at a dried seed head or other edible morsel. Blackbirds make their way methodically around the cotoneasters, of which there are many self sown here, daintily picking and swallowing the bright berries one by one. The seed feeder * is constantly busy with blue, coal and great tits darting quickly in and out, goldfinches taking their time and their fill at a leisurely pace, while beneath, a fat wood pigeon waits patiently for food to fall at his feet. They all need to be wary and swift to leave if need be, the sparrow hawk is like lightening.
It’s inevitable that we assign human traits to animals, magpies make me think that they are quarrelsome, too bold for their own good, but very bright. They move through the garden in a gang and if the dog has gone out for his morning walk and I have foolishly put his breakfast on the doorstep for his return, half of it will have been taken by the time he does. I don’t begrudge them the treat, they’re just doing their best to survive, like every other creature in our gardens they evolved to succeed in our landscapes which of course we humans have changed so much and for so long that we have no memory of how biodiverse it was and should be.
We are only custodians of our little patch of earth temporarily, but however short that time we can help it to support its inhabitants and visitors especially through winter. They have the ever more changeable weather to cope with just as we do, but without the luxury of a warm coat, hat and gloves, so they need the cover of dense hedges, drifts of leaves, perennial stems, seed heads and piles of logs.
In other words they need us to leave the garden as nature intends for the winter, decaying vegetation, old growth, tussocks of grass and tangled messes to take shelter in, and thinking of human traits, neat and tidy are not desirable ones to assign to anything in the garden, especially not at the beginning of winter.
* Please make sure to keep bird feeders really clean to help prevent the spread of deadly viruses, I disinfect and wash mine every week.
