The Great Outdoors

As I write this editorial, we are about to come out of lockdown and I have moved away from Bromham into a relatively new property on an estate. My new garden is just an area of lawn with a small patio area and it is not welcoming for wildlife at all. In fact, during the four weeks I have been here, all I have seen in the back garden is a solitary blackbird. Don’t get me wrong, there is birdlife about; my neighbours have sparrow hawk and all manner of small birds enjoying their feeders and even have a visiting hedgehog. But there are no trees planted in my garden yet and, despite putting up feeders and a nest box, I am starved of wildlife for now.

So, for this article, I am featuring images of the birdlife from the garden I have just left in Bromham which was a real wildlife haven. In the past year of lockdowns, the garden had been the one place where life seemed to continue as normal. At this time, the blue tits would have settled in one of the nest boxes I provided, the dunnocks and the blackbirds would have inhabited in the conifers and the robins would be nesting over the back of the pond, not far from ‘Jenny Wren’.

It’s amazing what birds you can attract into a garden if you spend a bit of time putting up some feeders and maybe a nest box too. Blue tits love to hang from a nut feeder while the sparrows decimate the feeders of sunflower seeds, seeming to throw most of them onto the floor as they search for that perfect sized and shaped seed. Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins seem to prefer to hoover up everything that gets thrown or dropped on to the ground below the feeders. If you are lucky enough to have goldfinches in your garden, try some niger seeds - they love them!

This is my favourite time of the year - the birds will be laying their eggs and soon, possibly by the time you are reading this, the young will be fledging from the bird boxes. It really is a magical time of the year.

I went for a walk around a local nature reserve the other day and the sound of the birds calling was amazing, all of them trying to attract a mate. The area is totally new to me but, even on that short two mile walk, I saw a variety of warblers, goldfinches, long tailed tits, a kingfisher, heron and buzzards. Being at one with nature is so good for our mental wellbeing in these stressful times.

Over the coming months I will continue to feature some of the many fantastic places I have visited with my camera over the years, but I’ll also update you on how my quest to bring wildlife into my new garden is progressing. It’s going to be a long term project; the birds are close by but seem loathe to move away from the established feeders and gardens on the estate.

You can see more images on my Facebook Page which is Greg Coyne Photography so please check out my page, like it, and then keep up to date with my travels on a regular basis.