I snooped, I stooped...

stealthily I crept looking for all the world like

a peeping tom of the pervy kind.

Our hedge wasn't having any of it,

playing its cards close to its chest, secrets of a nesting kind

 were concealed to the human eye.

This is the reason why...

a thrushes egg found on the grass.

Thrushes haven't flourished in our garden, the reason I think is

because the blackbirds guard their ancient hedge with aggressive zeal.

A couple of summers ago, I found a nest, carefully watched it

and two fledglings emerged.

One I nearly trod on early one morning when I was walking the course;

luckily it fluttered into the hedge were mum fed it for two days until it was ready for the off into the big bad world.  The other I'm ashamed to say, got killed in a rat trap we had behind the greenhouse, where a family of rats had taken up residence near the compost heap.  I was there at the time, I heard the squawk, the trap snap, and rushed to find it 

dead.  I just can't begin to tell you how I felt.

On another occasion a fully grown thrush was being harried by a blackbird and flew into one of the oak room windows.  I rushed to its aid, just in time to see it breathe its last.  The strange thing was, out from under one of its wings, a large black insect emerged, the like of which I'd never seen before.  Horrible looking thing it was, it then disappeared back from whence it came.  Word is obviously out in the thrush world, our neck of the woods is not a safe place to be.  So you can imagine my delight the other day to see a thrush working away at a little light Wimpey building.  Since that day, I haven't clapped eyes on it, perhaps it's sitting on its wood chip mattress, trying oh so hard to hatch a family.  

Our garden I pride myself on being a haven for wildlife, only yesterday we saw a pair of

partridges perambulate through the hedge, a quick shofty round then back.
The trouble with being laid back is that my runner bean flowers get nipped by the 
sparrows, they use the veg plot as a dust bath.  The blackbirds have to inspect every green shoot to see if they're growing... well they were!

The slugs obviously have a field day, I'm hoping my home-spun
frogspawn when it grows up will police the garden with zero tolerance.

I swing lazily in my hammock on sunny days secure in the knowledge
that my relaxed gin and tonic gardening is proving a huge success with
all the wildlife of the Weald...
definitely my kind of gardening.

Just got to get the weather on board now and
the job's a good'un.

taken... not last year... oh dear me... No!