Garden idyll

I love my garden.

It's just an ordinary suburban garden - quite large and a bit overgrown but at times it seems like a mini wildlife park with all sorts of interesting critters to watch and occasionally a small flash of magic - yesterday was an example.

You all know about the Hecks - the hedgehog family who live at the bottom of the garden - and extended Heck family now, with at the very least two Great Hecks, Middle Heck and the rcently spotted Mini Heck. Then there are the squirrels who come for the almond tree, the frogs from next door's pond, the mice, and of course the cats patrolling their territory like mini-lions. And because Dylan is a hunter we know there are also mice and shrews somewhere - he finds plenty of them to bring us as gifts.

Then there are the birds - the blackbirds and starlings who chase each other around the lawn, the sparrows, the finches - goldfinches, chaffinches - the bluetits, the wren, the robin who comes right up to the spade if the BM is digging and expects work to stop while he hunts for the worms that have been exposed, Posh and Becks the ring-collared doves who sit and coo to each other in a branch of one apple tree while the magpies chatter at each other in the next one along and then fly down to finish off the final leavings of the cat food that the cats didn;t want and that the hedgehogs have also left..

And yesterday for the first time ever in my life I saw a jay. He had obviously found something to interest him on the bird table and he had a good long drink from the bird bath. And luckily I had decided to take a coffee break from dealing with the Black Angel at just the right time. So I got a chance to spot this beautiful creature from my kitchen window and watch him as he visited. He was handsome and proud and so very sure of himself - a real Presents hero of the bird world.

It was a fabulous moment - I don't know what sort of food it was that attracted him but I'm going to try and find out and then I'll put some more out in the hope of attracting him again. I hope he'll come back, but if he doesn't at least I saw him once.