As I type I can hear a blue tit outside my back door, which is firmly closed against the cold. The bird is hidden in the dense ivy covering the wall between our garden and the neighbour's.
After the mild and mixed-up weather of the beginning of this year, the grey, wet and sleety conditions do feel more like winter. But it's somehow lost its mojo. It's not real winter, more of a half-hearted pretence of a winter.
So will there be any birds in my garden come this weekend's Big Garden Birdwatch? It's normally pretty busy with a range of small birds, and since laying a lawn last autumn, sightings of blackbirds and thrushes have definately increased. Judging by the worm casts in the grass, it's also attracted quite a lot of other wildlife.
When it gets cold, birds fluff up their feathers and shelter. Trying not to waste energy on any activity that will burn up vital calories needed to help them get through the cold spell.Eating and drinking is a neccesity, but flitting about is not if they want to live through to spring. So I may not get to see much going on in my garden at all.
If that's true across London and the UK, then that's fine. But if there's an absence of birds just in my garden, then I will have failed in my attempts to create a wildlife friendly garden. If there's a dearth of birds in my home borough (Hackney), then something's seriously wrong with my environment. That's why it's important to send in your Big Garden Birdwatch results, even if your outdoor space appears empty of life.
This idea of empty space is one that can be dangerous. Developers have to consider empty space carefully. What can appear to be unloved, uncared for muddy waste land to one person, may be a historic site of importance that supports a wealth of plants, bugs and birds.
Lately, developers have been joined by bankers, politicians and sociologists, all thinking clever thoughts around values and worth. Is 'empty space' land more valuable for its development potential and ability to generate income, or is it worth more when managed for its natural qualities?
We seem to value what we have less than what we don't have. So I'm campaigning to protect the Thames Estuary with its fish stocks, birds, wild mud-flats, communities and otherwordly saltmarshes. This is an estuary that has helped shape our country over the centuries. The Thames estuary has enormous worth and we should celebrate it, not decimate it.
I have a bluetit living in my bird box she or he comes in at 4.30 pm settles Dow then sleeps till sunrise it's amazing to watch .
tony.