Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
December 2, 2008: festive fun with feathered friends
This week, Terry Walton takes delight in the arrival of the festive month and a selection of feathered friends
December is here! T’is the season to be jolly! Christmas trees appear everywhere and light up these dark and dreary days and garlands of lights adorn our houses setting the night time gloom alight. It is a time when some of the stalwarts of the garden are used to decorate our homes. In these hard economic times what better than to ‘deck our halls with boughs of holly’.
Mistletoe also seems to be in abundance after the very wet summer. This parasitic growing plant has formed huge clumps in the trees and they are rich in those delicate translucent berries. Go on, get some, who knows - that kiss under the mistletoe may rekindle the romance in your life.
These truly seasonable plants are there to be harvested but remember don’t slaughter them, prune only what you require because these are vital food for our feathered friends. Let sense prevail and all will be happy at this time of sharing and giving.
The other reason to be jolly is that the twenty first of December signals the shortest day and then soon the days of light will be extending and before long we will be marching into a new exciting year.
It is not only on Christmas cards that we see the robin. During your forays into the garden our little red-breasted friend will be chasing you around in the hope that you will unearth some tasty morsels for him to feed on to ward off the cold and winter hunger.
The robin is not the only feathered friends that stays at home during these winter days, many others stay rather than fly off to warmer climes. The fools!
If you deck your garden with a range of bird feeders you will be able to feast your eyes on a whole host of birds that will brighten a drab day.
A mix of peanuts, wild bird seed, niger seeds and fat balls will encourage a wide range of these beauties to frequent your garden and bring hours of pleasure. Much better than television and you create your own ‘winter watch’ before your very eyes.
On the dullest of days the bright green and yellow plumes of the Blue Tit will be seen feeding away. Then there are grander colours of the members of the finch family, the Chaffinch, Goldfinch with his red and white mask, and the bright yellow and greens of the Greenfinch followed by the rosy pink face and breast of the Bullfinch.
These delightful, dressy occupants of our gardens replace the splendour of a show of summer annuals which are long gone.
Then there are the less brilliant colours but nevertheless antics of the starlings with they mottled, speckled breast and the jet black colour of the male blackbird rooting among the debris for a morsel or two. There darting furtively among the winter remnants of summer plants moves the secretive jenny wren. Sparrows chirp away merrily in the denser evergreen shrubs.
I was particularly pleased to see the gardeners’ best ally - the thrush - back in residence. All of these wonderful creatures are very welcome in my garden. As a gardener I feel it is my duty to work in harmony with all of natures creatures (well almost, slugs excepted). This fragile eco –system is under threat from the intensive farming and use of pesticides indiscriminately and loss of habitat. By creating our own little havens we can partly help redress this situation for the pleasure of all.
It is a sorry garden that lacks the cheerful chorus and diverse behaviour of one of nature's most delicate animals.
More garden birds
- Is the robin as friendly as it seems? Find out here
- Dr Hessayon's Festive Gardening Quiz: test your knowledge of garden trivia
- Is it a chaffinch or is it a brambling? Find out how to spot the difference
- The blossom-loving bullfinch
- How to attract goldfinches to your garden
- The mistle thrush
- The house sparrow
- Guide to armchair birdwatching
- Planting to attract birds to your garden
- What to feed garden birds
- Visit our garden wildlife section
- Chat about gardening and wildlife at Saga Zone
More from Terry Walton
My Life On A Hillside Allotment
Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press. The book is available from Amazon
