A New Garden Guest

This is the second summer a juvenile blackbird finds shelter in our garden. 

It cannot fly yet, so it's hopping about or hiding under vegetables or behind the shed when it sees somebody approaching.

This must be a risky time in a blackbird's life - too big for the nest but too young to fly.



I've done a quick Google search on blackbirds and found out they are territorial. This chick might well be the younger sibling of the one who inhabited our garden last year. Blackbirds are monogamous and the pairs stay together for as long as they live. According to RSPB, they have a life expectancy of 3.4 years, but the oldest one on record managed to live for as long as 20 years and 3 months!

Hopefully our resident one will have a long and happy life. Luckily for him/her (at this age both males and females are brown) there are no cats in our garden. Plenty to eat too - blackbird heaven on earth. I am starting to suspect we will get a new fledgling every year from now on.

Garden Guests

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Build it and they will come.
This has certainly been true for our solitary bee hotel. It went up in spring and it's proven very popular. The first kind of bees to visit it were mason bees - a species I hadn't even known existed. They seal their holes with earth – hence their name. I counted eleven holes already sealed up and yet more are being colonised. I looked up mason bee and found out that the female lays one egg at a time, deposits pollen and nectar with it, then seals up the cavity. Then lays another egg and repeats the process till the hole is filled up. The young bees will emerge next spring - the next generation pollinators for our apple trees!