WE spend a lot of time in the Hide, as you have probably gathered. Depending on the weather and the time of the year, it’s any time and much of the time anywhere from 6.30am to late at night.
It’s where many, if not most, of my columns originate, because this is where things happen and where I do much of my reading. Much of the natural activity out there revolves around birdlife, and much else of course, but let me stay with birds for a moment.
We have long-standing and dear friends who are former South Coasters but who now live in Northamptonshire in England. We correspond frequently, keeping each other up to date on all sorts of things, including goings-on in the Hide and in their garden.
The other day Les quoted us a quote, which I must share with you, “For birdsong isn’t just something we like to hear, it’s actually good for us. Scientists are finally beginning to realise what poets, musicians and naturalists have known for centuries, that listening to the sounds of birds can make us feel more relaxed, reduce stress and even improve our physical as well as our mental health”. Hear, hear!
Think about it – doesn’t a good day start with the dawn chorus? Be honest, you even love the hadedas too. And doesn’t it often end with the Natal robin scuffling around in the gloaming or even a fiery-necked nightjar out there in the anonymous darkness?
Les’s dawn chorus involves birds like blackbirds, robins, blue tits, starlings, sparrows and doves (sadly, he has no hadedas), while ours certainly includes the robin, sparrows, doves and even starlings, in our case the ever-entertaining redwing.
Les writes about all these birds in their various bird baths, well, we don’t run (sorry!) a regular bath, but we do have a plate which is kept full of water for our resident olive sunbird, which must be the cleanest sunbird on the lower South Coast.
A few metres from the Hide is our magnificent African flame tree which is now in full bloom and under constant siege, particularly by the sunbirds and the bulbuls who love to sit on the top and just be cheerful.
And hasn’t this just been an amazing season for butterflies? We seem to have been quite inundated with them, including some spectacular chaps like, we think, a mocker swallowtail. They have taken over the flowering trees and shrubs in our garden and are a constant delight flitting around the Hide.
Finally, snakes. You know that we have regular visits from delightful spotted bush snakes, well, either they are getting smaller or there is a nest of babies somewhere close to the Hide.
The other day there were two tiny snakes on the balustrade, both with the exquisite markings of the species, but not the experience of adults. They both managed to fall off the balustrade into the garden below, hopefully suffering no harm.
So, the Hide is quite a zoo at the moment, but then it always is, cheers!
