Monday 9 October 2017

Where the wild things are

There, under a large pot I moved this morning, was a beautiful, tiny newt. 

The woodlouse on the far upper right gives
some idea of scale

That’s why I leave this place a little wild.  Sometimes part of me feels a bit ashamed of my garden, because I know it doesn’t conform, it's not beautiful or tidy or planned, but then I have to remind myself:  it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. 

I leave this little outdoor space pretty much to its own devices, with the minimum of maintenance, and I know that it looks like I can’t be bothered.  But I just don’t want to bother all the wonderful things in it that are doing very well without me.   I don’t want to bother – as in trouble, or disturb - the perfect cycle of nature, the happy micro-world within its boundaries. 

For me the rewards are all I could ever wish for.  Like that beautiful newt, an unexpected find, the first I’ve ever seen here.   And like the hedgehogs that visit every night.  The things they leave behind – nearly always in the same place – are the next morning’s confirmation of their fruitful foraging and, I know it sounds bizarre to get a buzz from seeing hedgehog shit, but I really do get pleasure from that proof.  Like this one, so conveniently left for me directly on a leaf!

(I promise I won't make a habit of 
sharing my animal droppings)

It’s true, I spend a good ten minutes every morning searching for and then burying numerous little hedgehog turds.

Last year, the evidence of one sleeping under piles of twigs and cuttings beneath the hedge was the sound of it snoring.  Actually, a bit more than snoring; it was also emitting a noise that I can only describe as being like a Smurf with a smoker’s cough.  A hedgehog with a cough isn’t a good sign, meaning it may have lung-worm, but this one seemed to be doing okay.  Then one day in late Summer I heard something else  – some squeaking and snuffling and… a kind of suckling sound. Hearing this every day for a week or so, it dawned on me that she may have had babies…

…She had.

One of last year's hoglets

I can’t tell you how ridiculously happy it makes me to think a hedgehog chose to give birth and wean her young here.

Unplanned flowers and herbs proliferate too.  Lemon balm and feverfew grow of their own accord, wherever they like, along with pink and purple toadflax.  Forget-me-nots grow in the cracks in the ancient paving. Strong-smelling calamint blooms long into the Autumn, self-seeding on the path, where I leave it to brush against my ankles amid honeybees and butterflies.  Nettles are great in so many ways - I leave a good patch of nettles, and at this time of year so many of their leaves have been neatly folded up by caterpillars, sealing themselves inside with silk threads.  A bramble bush compensates for its outrageously sharp thorns with its long season of luscious blackberries. Vast mats of clover creep over the old concrete patio, plumptious woodpigeons peck at its leaves, bumble bees are drawn drunkenly to its heady scented flowers.  Ivy shelters gorgeous, huge garden snails and secretive wolf spiders.  Buddleia and honeysuckle do their own thing,the knock-on effect of their nectar’s attractiveness to small insects bringing in low-flying bats and swallows at dusk to scoop them up.

Dandelions in Spring are as pretty and bright as any cultivated plant, so why not leave them? Goldfinches which, like great spotted woodpeckers, look far too exotic to be British birds, cling to their long stalks bending slowly under their minimal weight, and pull at the flowers methodically, filling their beaks with the delicate seed heads, then depart with a tinkling chirrup, as if to say “Thanks!”

There are bank voles, woodmice, shrews.  A stoat appeared one day, as did a slinky little weasel looking for prey.  Grasshoppers and crickets....a frog under the shed... exotic-looking beetles with bodies that shimmer like jewels prompt me to read up about their species, get educated.  Somewhere below the surface a mole has been digging, I'm stupidly excited at the thought of this mysterious underground visitor.  There's no neat lawn to disrupt, so it doesn't matter. Blackbirds and dunnock chicks hatch in their nests, secure in the overgrown hedges where the sparrows roost en masse at night, treating us to a late afternoon chorus of quite unbelievable volume.  What are they chatting about?! 

Everything’s a mess and everything’s alive.   I wouldn't want it any other way.


18 comments:

  1. Fantastic!
    Who needs David Attenborough!

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  2. This sounds (and looks) uncannily like our own garden - except that you make no mention of rats, the bane of our bird feeding lives.
    Absolutely lovely C.

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  3. We have the overgrown look also but only birds,foxes and squirrels

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  4. CC - so pleased you have the 'overgrown' look too - it's a thing! I envy you the foxes and squirrels, only seen very occasionally and fleetingly in this garden so far.
    TS - as with CC, very glad to hear of the similarity too. I remember we discussed the rat problem before some time ago - so I do sympathise - I'm fond of rats but it's a hard one to deal with. Have been fortunate enough not to see any here for a while now due to an increase in neighbourhood cats. Unfortunately that means there are other bird and rodent casualties, although it does seem that the birds fare a lot better than I'd have expected, (in fact one of the cats is now very welcome here as she ignores the birds completely, they happily hop about right near her and she doesn't take any notice - all rather Utopian!)

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  5. Your garden sounds lovely!

    Squirrels do okay at New Amusements Towers, as do frogs, beetles and the odd bat; no foxes though. Don't see any rats either but if the burrowing into the compost bin is to be believed, they're around and active...just discretely so!

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    1. In fact, had a squirrel eating a mushroom under the willow tree out back this morning, having his/her breakfast whilst I had mine.

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    2. Oh Martin - "a squirrel eating a mushroom under the willow tree" has a lovely poetic ring to it! (I could've done with one of them modelling for me a few weeks back too...)
      Your garden and its wildlife sounds idyllic. A discrete rat is the best kind too, although they're great fun to watch.

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    3. I went to put something in the compost bin later and had the squirrel scrambling through branches overhead.

      The willow tree will be a bit less poetic when I have to pollard it in a few weeks time...

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    4. From poetic to butch in two short sentences! ;-)

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  6. You have an amazing garden bursting with life - You are very lucky. I'm afraid our garden is a bit too big to let nature take its course, so lots of grass (and a few trees) and as a result not much wildlife. On the upside however we are just a few minutes from the forest which is bursting with wildlife and it's not unusual to have a herd of deer wandering down the street at 5am!

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    1. Sounds wonderful, Alyson, a forest on your doorstep and deer at dawn! Thanks too re our messy space, I'm much encouraged (but still need to get a broken fence fixed asap!)

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  7. In our old home, there was a pond with newts. Fun to catch them. (we always put them back again). The ones we had were spotty and orange underneath. Beautiful, as you say.

    This year, we had toads (or where they frogs?) invading the garden shed, living under the door mat. We took them out, but they marched right back! I wonder if they'll return in 2018.

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    1. Lovely about your newts. at your old home. Would love to have a pond but there's a stream not far away, so I think that's where this one came from.
      The thought of your toads in the shed made me smile!

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  8. Looks fantastic, C. A critter's paradise. Great pic of the hedgehog. The voles, however, make me crazy. Completely wrecked our outdoor space at our old place in Chicago. Had a skunk living under our front porch for a while too. My God... the smell. Awful.

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    1. Thanks Brian, it's their home (the critters), really, not ours! I love the look of skunks but from all I've read about them and what you've just said I'd never want to smell one. Mind you I hear people have them as pets these days - must take a special kind of love!

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  9. Replies
    1. Thank you Darcy.
      I saw one of the hedgehogs this evening as it was out quite early - was so chuffed to watch it for real this time rather than just clear up its mess!

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