One of the delights of our small scale 'gardening for wildlife' plan has been the way that small birds have become increasingly tame in their search for aphids to eat. We regularly see them among the branches of the rose 'Golden Showers'; they also inspect our two apple trees, nooks and crannies in the shed and guttering on the greenhouse. Insect eaters such as blue tits are a delight to watch as they balance on the tips of the trees delicately picking away.
Until this week I would have included sparrows on this list but I have been sadly disappointed. At first they appeared to be flying down from the fence to the staging on which my husband had set out his tripods of home grown dwarf sweet peas and carnations. I assumed that they were removing greenfly. Unfortunately for us they were pecking at the tender leaves and buds of the sweet peas and eating them. I wonder if this is what sparrows do in farmland to commercial crops.
The sweet peas on which my husband expended such care over the winter have now been moved to our recycled plastic 'bothy' and concealed behind a length of recycled net curtain. We shall have to consider where to put them when they bloom in warmer weather. I shall still enjoy watching the sparrows - but now their diet will be restricted to what they can glean among the grass of our unsprayed lawn.
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