Lime Tree Avenue - Snails and Song Thrushes

A couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to spot a Song Thrush in Lime Tree Avenue.  It disappeared behind one of the old trees.

One of the old Lime Trees - showing epicormic growths (suckers).

As I watched the thrush disappear, I noticed the epicormic growths around the bottom of the tree.  Over the last couple of weekends the Brighter Uckfield group have been trimming these growths away, as well as removing litter from the avenue.

I always find this a very satisfying and calming job - and with all the worry about the Corvid-19 virus, I've certainly needed to be calmed down. The word "Mindfulness" is very over used but this type of work, where you methodically remove unwanted growths and have to pay attention while doing it forces me to stay in the moment and really notice the sights and sounds of the avenue.

White-lipped Snails

I always find some tiny wildlife while working on the trees. This year, I found about a dozen White-lipped Snails while working on the three trees that I trimmed. I find that, in the garden, these nibble away dying flowers etc. unlike the bigger Common Garden Snail that makes a nice mess of some of my plants. These little snails are just the sort of thing that a hungry thrush eats.

Common Plume moth.

While clipping my way through the ruby-budded growths, I found a little T-shaped moths, a Common Plume. This moth my look delicate but it can be found during all months of the year.

My last tree - before and after.

After I finished my third and final tree, I collected some of the stems that I had pruned off so I could see the fresh, green leaves open over the next few weeks.

Big Garden Birdwatch - where are my sparrows?

At the end of January I took part in the RSPB's Big Garden bird watch. I wrote an account of my experiences in my Big Garden Birdwatch post. Now the RSPB have collated the results from over half a million people. The table below shows the top ten birds in East Sussex.

Rank in East Sussex	Species	Average per East Sussex garden	In my garden
1	House Sparrow	3.4	None
2	Blue tit	3.3	2
3	Starling	2.6	2
4	Blackbird	2.6	3
5	Woodpigeon	2	1
6	Great tit	1.4	None
7	Chaffinch	1.4	None
8	Robin	1.3	1
9	Collared Dove	1.2	1
10	Magpie	1.1	2

We also got 1 goldfinch (19th in East Sussex), 1 pied wagtail (30th), 1 song thrush (22nd). Our scores for the top 10 birds are a little less than average, which is surprising since we have a big garden with plenty of trees. That said, the trees and bushes allow the birds to stay out of sight and I didn't include any that I couldn't positively identify from a tantalising glimpse of a shape or a tail.

We do have one gaping gap right at the top of the table - no house sparrows. On previous years we've had a few but this year - none. For me, this is a particularly sad omission. I grew up in the London area and the cheeky sparrow was very much a bird of my childhood. Every time we threw crumbs out in the garden - no posh RSPB food then - dozens of squabbling sparrows would descend to enjoy our scraps. I didn't really notice them going. I had moved around, gone to university in Sheffield and then moved to Sussex. Now seeing or hearing this lively little bird has become a special treat rather than a part of every day life.

If it was only our garden that is missing sparrows, it wouldn't matter, but - although house sparrows are the most common bird in our counts - the RSPB say "Numbers of house sparrows, also on the red-list, dropped by 17 per cent in gardens compared to 2012 ..."

On their Red, amber and green explained page the RSPB tell us that "Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action."

Kate Vincent completed a PhD Investigating the causes of the decline of the house sparrow in Britain and the associated web site has some information on What you can do. Her suggestions include:

• provide seed all the year round - especially sunflower hearts
• provide mealworms in summer, to help the fledglings
• provide a good mixture of shrubs in the garden
• leave some grass long
• provide a well topped-up bird bath all the year round.

Big Garden Birdwatch

The last weekend of January I take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. Would I see the special visitors that we have been enjoying since the cold weather started? We had a fieldfare on Thursday and a bullfinch on Friday.  I shouldn't ask silly questions. The birds seen to know when the nation is scrutinising their every visit to the garden and stay away, or land tantalisingly in a neighbour's patch, or fly overhead. In short they do anything rather than land in the garden and be counted.

A rook that perched precariously on the telephone wire just outside our garden and a female blackbird that sat sunning itself in our oak for most of the hour.

I did my birdwatch from 9.07 to 10.07 Saturday morning. At the end of my hour the scores on the doors were:

• Blackbird: 3
• Blue tit: 2
• Collared dove: 1
• Goldfinch: 1
• Magpie : 2
• Pied Wagtail: 1
• Robin: 1
• Song thrush: 1
• Starling: 2
• Woodpigeon: 1

We often see birds in the garden but devoting a whole hour to watching them is different. I found I was noting behaviour that I never usually see: the amusing antics of a rook trying to balance on a thin telephone wire; a female blackbird sunning itself in a tree and a cheeky wagtail stealing food from under the beaks of squabbling starlings. The two magpies were plucking twigs from our oak tree. It seems strange that they take the trouble to do this when there are so many lying on the ground.

Our bird count was lower this year: no sparrows, only two starlings, no great or coal tits. On the up side, we got a song thrush and a goldfinch.

If you are reading this on the day I wrote it, you can still fit your hour in. Just spend an hour noting the birds that land in your garden or other patch of ground and submit your results using the link at the top of this post.