“The richer and more varied your ecosystem, the better the range of creatures you will have right up the chain, including birds”
I get huge pleasure from watching the birds at Longmeadow. I put out food by the kitchen window and love how this becomes incorporated into the daily rounds of chaffinches, tits, robins, blackbirds, thrushes and occasional blackcaps. But nothing I grow gives me as much pleasure as the arrival of the house martins and swallows in April, and their presence throughout summer. The house martins nest above our bedroom window and their chittering wakes me at dawn.
I lie watching their incredible aeronautical display as the parents and assistant adults swoop and wheel to the nests tucked under the eaves. By the time they’re feeding their third brood, there can be scores of birds cutting arcs that interweave within millimetres of each other.
The swallows nest in our sheds and fly lower, faster and more direct – Spitfires to the house martins’ Hurricane. They start to thin out around
