I could have sworn someone said that gardening for wildlife was a lazy form of gardening. Something about not needing to prune, cut grass and weed as often? Pity they missed out the backbreaking bit involved in creating the garden in the first place.
I'm about eight-weeks into this project and six weeks overdue at the chiropractors. However. I am now the proud overseer of three raised vegetable beds (awaiting some manure from the nearby Lea Bridge Road riding stables and the maturing contents of my wormery) and a raised seating area that will be turfed and bounded by native hedging.
The mounds of rubble we inherited when we bought the house have been broken down, sifted, sorted, and used as a base for the raised seating area and accompanying stepped ramp. However, while the rubble and old slabs were piled up I'd unwittingly created an ideal toad home, so when I came to move it all the other day, I made a rather large and ugly toad homeless! Desperate to keep this garden helper, I gathered a bucket of slugs, created a cool, damp, leaf-lined home for it, and stocked the larder with my slug haul. I hope the toad stays.
This blog appears to be a long way off the subject of birds - BUT NO. You see the hedge, wildflower-turfed meadow and the host of fruit trees, shrubs and plants that I will eventually get round to growing next year will all provide food and shelter for birds in this urban corner of Hackney. Imagine if everyone with an outdoor space in London were doing the same. That would have a mega-impact on the birds we share our Capital with.
During the week, I had a chance to visit the RSPB's Leighton Moss reserve in Lancashire. The train service was pretty good and there's a station just next to the visitor centre. There were black pheasants, mallard, goldeneye, moorhen, pintail, heron, coot, bearded tits, redwing, loads of gulls and common woodland and garden birds. Sadly, I was looking the wrong way when someone shouted "bittern". Best of all, was the sight of two red deer; a stag and doe grazing around some reed beds. They were magnificent.
We also visited the uplands, specifically, the Forest of Bowland - famous for its rare hen harriers. The landscape was all heather-topped hills, over-grazed slopes and intensively farmed valleys. This severe banding of land, broken occasionally by ranks of conifers planted many moons ago by the Forestry Commission, is the vision of an Uplands area that I have grown-up with. I thought it was normal for the Welsh and Lake District uplands to look like this. There is an other-worldly beauty to it but the clear lines between habitats are so unreal I don't know why I've never questioned it before.
This wild space is now being lovingly nurtured. A major broad-leaved tree planting initiative is underway between the valley and lower-slopes and the clear demarcations between habitats will be allowed to blend and merge. The intrinsic value will be an area of even greater outstanding beauty, with more wildlife. The instrumental value will be clearer, cleaner water for us. These uplands are where a lot of the UK's tap water comes from and it costs quite a bit to clean it up.
Is there a great deal of difference between my garden and the uplands? Beyond the sheer scale and content, I don't believe there is. Where both have been managed to meet the needs of 'man' they should be managed for the needs of 'man' and 'wildlife'. Both require heavy labour to transform and constant attention to maintain.
Speaking of maintenance, here's a heads-up for FEED THE BIRDS DAY - 27 October!