Wildlife in our Chamberet garden

Just to make it clear - the title might suggest we have more than one garden, but we have only one garden and that is here in Chamberet!

We have gardens on all sides, and a couple of small fields out the back, so plenty of space for wildlife and pleny of space to hear and be aware of the wildlife.  Also in this area there is an amazing amount of birdlife - lots of birds of prey - buzzards, eagles, kites -  which can regularly be seen gliding up high.

As for our garden wildlife - there are lots of ants, some spectacular beetles and all sorts of bees, including huge black bees and lots of birds, which grace us with their morning chorus long before it's light at this time of year.  Lots of sparrow-type little birds, blue tits, some amazingly fast swifts at the moment, the occasional robin, a lot of noisy magpies and something we think is a black redstart. There's also a recent visitor, not at all shy, with some sort of a crest. A couple of blackbirds made their nest in an orange box which was on a ladder in the woodstore.  Unfortunately, one of the local cats must have climbed up the pile of wood as we noticed the box was all askew.  We noticed a lack of blackbird activity and when Harry looked, they had abandoned the nest leaving three lovely eggs behind.  They seem to be active again around the garden, so we hope they might nest again, though doubt that they'd return to the same place.  There are some other small birds, some kind of pippit or lark maybe that is nesting in the back of an old satellite dish!

The other bird which is a resident or lodger of ours is a barn owl!  We often sit in the garden in the evening and as it gets dark, often saw an owl or two flying around outside, then noticed screeching kind of noises from one of our chimneys.  We are now sure that there are chicks in there and think it might soon be time for them to leave (hoping there's not much damage left behind!).  Watching and listening to the owls in the evening is great, and having an owl watching you is even more interesting, as they often perch around and check us out!

We have quite a few lizards, which appear when the weather is warm from various hidey-holes, including in a rose bush near the front door.  It's often debatable who gets the bigger fright when I water the rose bush and see something darting out at high speed.  Our latest discovery is a toad, or a couple of toads which come out now every night.  There has been a bit of a chorus recently so there are obviously quite a few around in our garden and neighbours' gardens.  The other nighttime noise apart from croaking and screeching, are the crickets who are actually noisy during the day as well pn warm days and all through the warm nights.

Watching and waiting for the owl is the highlight at the moment - what a simple life we lead!  Off now to observe as it's dark here and a lovely soft evening.


© Marie Tyler, 2012