Nigel and I work from home in
different rooms. He is at the back of
the house, I the front. Both of us have
been suffering from persistent tapping at the window. Tiny, hormonally crazed blue tits have been
defending their territories against their own reflections. They have been showing an interest in the
nesting boxes fastened in the sheltered nooks of our walls.
On the gable end of our house, in the
dove cote, one dove had been sitting on an egg for what seemed like forever and
a day. We had assumed the egg was addled
and would never hatch, but she had faith and continued to brood the egg. Recently, her patience was rewarded by a
magnificent young squab.
I would call her ‘plucky’ if ‘plucky’
did not seem rather an insensitive word to apply to a bird.
The only nest we don’t like to see is
the magpie nest in a tree which borders our property – the parents rob the
nests of songbirds to feed their young. However,
this year, a crow with a single white feather in its tail has been bullying the
magpies and they appear to have abandoned their nest.
Amid all the home-building around us,
we have thought about sharing our own nest.
Several weeks ago, we signed up to the Homes for Ukraine scheme and are
waiting now to see if our guests are granted visas. The process seems to be taking forever and a
day, but we must keep hoping, just like our plucky dove.
