The world moves at a frantic pace, catastrophic events from the furthest corner are thrust before us vying for our attention. Even when we are not watching the silver screen or paper media, still the incessant bombardment of our senses by advertising never lets up, on billboards everywhere. At weeks’end we owe it to ourselves to seek a place of solace, somewhere to escape and spend time alone, to renew our depleted energy – both physical and psychological.
For many people the garden is a place of refuge, perhaps it is for you. Try to make time for your self. Leave your mobile in the kitchen. Step outside, stretch out your arms, breathe in deeply and saviour the fresh air as you would a nice glass of your favourite wine.
Simply seeing the various shades of green, all the myriad textures and shapes, has a deeply calming effect on all of us, add the colour and extravagance of flowers and it’s easy to immerse ourselves in another world. Just wandering around a garden thinking of nothing except what’s before you will soothe you. Yet one of the greatest pleasures, for me at least, is observing the various wildlife amidst its daily tasks. I use the word ‘observe’ carefully, because to me it means more than simply ‘watching’. What follows is a surprising example of just one of the myriad pleasures that can be found on your own doorstep.
I’ve often witnessed Blackbirds feasting on slugs to such an extent that I’m convinced they are one of the hapless mollusc’s biggest predators after hedgehogs. Mother blackbird must see any slug as a well-wrapped sandwich for her young, that can be popped in to hungry gaping mouths like a pro basketball player shooting at goal.
Anyway, this one time I watched one mother gather her brood beneath a cotoneaster shrub before jumping up and plucking the ripe berries for her attentive audience. A common enough garden scene, until the ground began to erupt just a hop away. I thought she would seize the worm the instant it showed itself.
But I was wrong. She appeared as transfixed as I was, the cotoneaster berries forgotten.
An impetuous youngster moved to seize the hapless squiggly and was sharply rebuffed by the parent. There we were, human, mother blackbird and her three youngsters watching spellbound while the mulch coninued lifting, beneath what must have been desperate bursts of energy. Eventually, a huge worm heaved itself in to the open to escape the clutches of its waterlogged confinement.
The instant the worm was free and seemingly safe, the parent pounced, snatching his centre, the worm coiling itself inagony and surprise. It knew its fate. Her brood knew it also and moved forward expectantly. Then this wiley parent did a curious thing. She laid one half of the worm along the ground and then, very suddenly, she stabed it with the point of her beak, not enough to kill it but enough for it to arch its back in pain-filled reflex. Her head jabbed forward, only this time she snatched the coiled reflxe part of the worm enabling her to ‘fold’ it smaller. She repeated her jabs several times before the six-inch specimen was folded in to a ‘sandwich’ small enough to be popped in to one lucky mouth.
