A couple of weeks ago I took a few days off and headed for one of my many favourite boltholes in Britain - North Norfolk.
I combined a bit of birdwatching at places such as RSPB Titchwell, with a lot of walking, plus some inevitable 'gardening', such as a trip to the famous winter garden at Anglesey Abbey and its grove of Himalayan Birch trees...
But my favourite gardening moment was in Hunstanton. We had heard barely a single House Sparrow for days, but close to the seafront in amongst dense housing we could hear their cheerful chatter from a tangle of dead Ivy on the side of a house.
It was immediately clear that the Ivy had been completely hacked off half way up and cleared away from the flintwork - no wonder it was dead!
But there in the gap underneath the owners had installed a veritable city of nestboxes.
I presume the Ivy had been Sparrow heaven when it was alive, for they love to nest in the dense web of interwoven stems tucked away behind the evergreen cover of Ivy leaves.
And I'm sure the homeowner had every good reason to want to contain the Ivy, and I don't castigate them for that. But full marks to whoever took the time and effort to try and replace what had been lost. I didn't see if the nestboxes were being used, but I don't see why they shouldn't be.
So many things we do in life have an impact on wildlife; trying to put back what we have taken away, and going that extra mile in doing so, seems well worth applauding.
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
I remove all ivy except for a few ‘trees’ which grow on top of something else. These trees provide flowers and berries for wildlife in winter, when there’s not much else around other than seeds. It’s also fun to watch wood pigeon splashing around in it trying to reach the berries!
Being the owner of an old, stone built house I can fully understand why they removed the Ivy, left unchecked it can cause serious damage. It would be interesting to know if the sparrows use the nest boxes or whether they find somewhere else. In my garden the birds prefer to find their own nesting sites, very few of my nest boxes have residents (if you exclude the field mice).
Build it and they will come.