Wild thing ...

… you make my heart sing! 

Well, it’s finally happened! I’ve seen my favourite bird today, the first one I’ve seen for at least a couple of years. Not only was my heart singing, but this soppy septuagenarian even had tears of joy welling up at the sight.

We had gone out for a short walk after having been cooped up indoors for the past few days while I wrestled with the technology. I had narrowed the problem down to the fact that it is RAW files that are causing the difficulties, but my iMac will happily upload JPEGs, so I changed the camera setting to JPEGs and we escaped into the fresh air. I asked Smithers if we could make a detour on the way back to go through a nearby housing estate. It was built on the site of a large house owned by a passionate botanist named Richard Warner, and a condition of its sale to the developer was that some of the ancient woodland should be preserved intact in one corner. 

I suggested to Smithers that we take a stroll in that little copse, and almost immediately I could hear wrens calling. Within a minute, one had hopped onto a pile of rotting wood. I was entranced, and snapped away as fast as I could. The sound of birdsong all around us was magical. I’ve also put a photo of a robin in extras. It’s sitting on a flint and brick structure which may have been a sham chapel built by Richard Warner.

Incidentally, Richard Warner was given a ‘new’ plant called a Cape Jasmine in 1754 by a ship’s captain who had brought it back from the Cape of Good Hope. Richard Warner tended it in his hothouse, and various leading botanists from Kew declared it to be a new species. They wanted to call it a warneria, but Richard Warner refused. It eventually became known as a gardenia, after Dr. Alexander Garden who had been corresponding with the British experts.

PS: Smithers produced scones and jam with our post-walk cup of tea, declaring that the wren sighting deserved a celebration!