(This was written in late May 2016, but only published today
– when my parents finally moved).
This week, after 21 years, I will be saying goodbye to the
garden I’ve known pretty much my entire life. I’m writing this as I sit in it –
two Dunnock’s have just bombed into one of the bordering hedges, and a pair of
Collared Doves are waiting nervously and patiently in the big oak at the back,
no doubt ready to swoop down to the fallen seed when I move. Halfway through
typing that sentence a Coal Tit alighted just a few feet away from me on the
niger feeder. Having spent the first years of my life that I can remember in
this house, all the way through my teens and into early adulthood, there is no
doubt of the affinity I have for this small rectangle of land.
With my siblings and I having all graduated, my parents are
climbing aboard a lifelong dream to relocate to the sea, Sussex in fact, where
I can realistically hope for Divers, Terns and Skuas on that particular garden
list. Lists are things you never think of finishing. A life, county or patch
list lasts as long as you do, and only recently have I realised that my garden
total will no longer be able to be extended, with 72 seemingly the grand total
I’ve amassed, bar a very surprising visitor this week.
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| A juvenile Dunnock foraging on the day I wrote this post |
With my mini ‘scope set up, the dining room was very much a
hide in my early teens, and I familiarised myself with a number of common
species during these formative years, as well as enjoying the thrills of candid
moments with unusual birds (to a young kid), like Siskin and Marsh Tit. In my
later teens as my interest waned, and birding became practically non-existent,
my garden was always going to be the only place I’d notice anything feathered,
forever a little time portal to my obsessive youth. And, here I am now, in the
garden, rattling away a post for a blog that was triggered in part by my
re-found love for birds over the last 6 or 7 years. 2 Woodpigeons have shooed
off the Doves in the Oak, and a very bold Jay just grabbed a peanut and flew
off.
It’s fair to say my garden triggered my hobby of birding,
and the pleasing feel of identification. It must have been 1997 or 1998, and a
bird with a red forehead was sat in the small Ash. My mum could ID the common
birds, and I could too, having an interest for general wildlife (think Really
Wild Show), but this bird was a mystery. We knew my late grandmother had an
ancient bird book on her shelf, so we phoned her up to ask for her help. She
told us what it was – a Redpoll, and I remembered watching in awe at something
I didn’t even know existed, let alone having it in my garden.
From that point I was hooked, and in 1998 my parents gave me
a nondescript blue book for Christmas. It was to be my bird record book, and I
used it until 2004, jotting down the more unusual things I saw. I longed for
this book in recent years as I knew it’d hold forgotten memories, but numerous
trips to the attic proved fruitless. Typically, with the upcoming move, it was
found deep in a box, and I’ve had great joy thumbing through it these past few
weeks. It holds many garden records that I recall vividly – my first ever
Fieldfares and Redwings up close on the Rowan berry bush outside my very window
(cut down to my frustration around 2002!), a pair of Mandarin Ducks on the deck
for a good half an hour one April tea-time, and a handful of Lesser Spotted
Woodpeckers on the feeders. A very unseasonal Siskin called above me as I was
typing this paragraph, and the Dunnock pair are now scurrying about the lawn.
As the years went on I was able to ID rarer birds. The
rarest bird on my garden list no doubt came in 2010, when a Nightjar flew north
over the back. It was surreal – broad daylight, clearly identifiable with a
very unique flight, it was gone almost as soon as I saw it. More recently I’ve
had Firecrest, one I waited a while for, and in 2010-2012 a regular flock of
Bramblings would turn up in the winter. My friend Sam Jones even came over to
twitch these, and it was also how I met Kevin ‘Kojak’ Guest, one of the
Beddington birders, who came down one February day to photograph them. We’ve
remained friends since. All of these memories will live with me forever – the
foundations of a hobby, and the creation of sights that remain crystal clear in
my mind. The last bird on the list was a Ring-necked Parakeet, perhaps fitting,
symbolic of the changing times and landscape. No doubt in another 21 years they
will be a lot more regular here, and will give any cats the same jip mine just
received for innocuously strolling through the garden.
And, as always with birding, there was the one that got
away. This is another memory I can recall perfectly, and to this day I’ll never
be sure. It was a hot, sunny day, 17th May 2001, and I was playing
in the garden when I noticed something big, high up. It had come from the east,
and was slowly circling. I had my binoculars by the swing, and I managed to
grab them and connect with the huge, Heron-like bird. Its neck was
outstretched, and to my shock it uttered several loud, honking calls. I watched
it for a good 4-5 minutes before it spiralled over the house and away. Looking
back now it seems incredible, but I am pretty sure it must have been a Common
Crane. Perhaps the next people living here will have one fly over, to lay that
ghost to rest. However, I’ll never know if the bird list for this garden will
ever get added to. Forever 72.
