My Garden and Other Animals. Mike Dilger
male and female would also over the breeding season be making a slightly different impression with all the tits and finches currently flocking to my garden for food too!
Without doubt one of the best features that any self-respecting wildlife gardener should find room for is a compost heap. Obviously this makes getting rid of household vegetable and garden waste a piece of cake, rather than going to the extra effort of sending it off for somebody else to make a profit from or, worse still, using it as land-fill. There is also something amazing about the miracle of decomposition; a process whereby potato peelings, banana skins and apple cores can be broken down, only to be reconstituted back into the most wonderful fertilizer with which to feed your herbaceous borders.
We too were keen on making our own compost rather than spending our hard-earned cash on bags of it from the local garden centre, but the other reason why I wanted one was because they are hugely important wildlife habitats in their own right. All manner of animals are drawn to compost heaps because all that warm, rotting plant material provides a habitat which is mostly absent from gardens.
Ask most knowledgeable gardeners which animals are most commonly associated with compost heaps and hopefully the majority would respond with the answer – reptiles. This heat-loving group simply adores the warmth and protection offered, evidenced by an urban wildlife survey recently conducted around Bristol which revealed that those gardens with a compost heap were twice as likely to play host to resident slow-worms as those without. Compost heaps are also pretty much the only place in a garden (unless you have a huge pond) where you have any chance of catching up with a grass snake, as this is often where females choose to incubate and hatch their eggs. In fact, on the two occasions I have been lucky enough to have seen this wonderful and enigmatic snake in a garden setting, it had converted the heap to a home.
While not every garden compost heap will be able to double up as a natural vivarium, all heaps can be guaranteed to attract a much wider array of invertebrates, such as beetles and woodlice, than would otherwise be found in a sterile, tidy garden where a compost heap would be considered an unsightly eyesore. So, with all this in mind, and aware of the fact that the wood from the dismantling of both the fence and pergola was still sitting there just begging to be used, I had decided that in the spirit of recycling I would try to use the timber to build a couple of compost bins.
Of course, on the surface this grand plan seemed a quite brilliant way to improve the wildlife potential of the garden without either spending much money or wasting any more of the world’s timber resources, but the biggest obstacle to the successful completion of this task was that, in a nutshell, I’m terribly unpractical. As all the Dilgers hail from an academic background, it’s safe to say that, like my mother, father and two brothers, the practical or technical genes seem largely to have skipped a couple of generations, and like the rest of my family I’m much better at talking the talk, rather than walking the walk! In many ways what makes this even more hilarious is that I’m actually considered the most practical one, simply because of my ability to wire a plug or use a drill to mount a picture – we are that bad! A plug or a picture was one thing, but would I have the ability to cope with building something as technically demanding as a couple of compost bins? Well, we would have to see.
Having found a timber design for compost bins from an old Geoff Hamilton gardening book and having been promised the loan of an electric saw from Christina’s father (did he realise what he was promising?), the only bit of kit I now needed to begin the big build was a work bench, hence the visit that afternoon to our local DIY supermarket. As a person who has only recently realised the difference between a plum-bob and a plum-duff, I have always felt a touch intimidated going into these large DIY stores, where the staff have a habit of making you feel terribly inadequate, by perversely responding to your tentative question with another question they know you’ll struggle to answer. However, today was different as I knew exactly what I wanted; I was after that iconic tool of the trade which has done more to convey rugged manliness than any beer, aftershave or pair of jeans could ever do … I was after a Black & Decker Workmate!
Unaware that there was more than one design of Workmate, but not wanting to enquire further about the precise technical differences of each model without sounding stupid either, I did what I usually do in this situation, which is to go for the middle of the range. Christina, who incidentally does come from both practical and academic stock and so would have been a useful sounding board with my workbench dilemma, had taken herself off to the gardening section to feed her plant-buying addiction and so was unavailable for a quick consultation. Nevertheless, I felt both confident and ever so slightly thrilled at the fun I would have with my new purchase … ‘Mike Dilger, naturalist, broadcaster and compost bin builder’!
The following day should have brought the promise of more fun and frolics in the garden for both of us, but instead it started off with a big argument. Like all disagreements it had begun with something small; with us arguing as to where the pond would be located, but this had merely been the stalking horse for a much larger bone of contention, namely what we actually wanted the garden to represent.
In our sketched plan we had effectively decided to divide the garden in two, with the half closer to the house representing the more cultivated and formal part of the garden, while the other half alongside the wooded bank would be left more au naturel with a screen of apple trees marking the border between the two sections and effectively operating as green curtains through to the secret nature reserve.
While we agreed that a pond was something we both wanted, the only issue was whether I would lose a large chunk of my meadow for the pond to be situated in the nature reserve, or whether Christina would have to sacrifice a site closer to the house which she had earmarked as a potential seating area. The crux of my argument consisted of why we would go to all the considerable effort of digging a pond if we couldn’t even observe what would be attracted to the feature due to it being hidden behind the trees, while Christina countered that the area where I wanted to locate the pond was one of the very few positions which would also comfortably accommodate a table and chairs in the sun.
Once again, our beloved birds abruptly ended the argument, as above our shouting match I suddenly heard a siskin in the birch tree above our heads! The argument stopped instantly as we both fully understood this was not a moment to be squandered, but one to be savoured. I suppose the siskin’s song is like a cross between the wheezy greenfinch song and the chaotic, staccato rhythm of a sedge warbler, and to someone like me, whose favourite aspect of natural history has to be birdsong, it was a very special moment. Unlike the blackbirds and chaffinch which had already begun singing to hold territories, this siskin would soon be leaving our garden to raise a family elsewhere and so I suspect was probably just putting in a bit of practice in order to hit the ground running on his chosen breeding ground up in Scotland or Scandinavia.
Deciding that a compromise could easily be worked out, we elected instead to use our time more usefully by making a cuppa and enjoying the garden rather than arguing about it, so the rest of the morning was spent sitting on the patio with our coats and coffee, as we watched early spring unfurl across our garden. Although the siskin had by that time left to practise elsewhere, the sun coming out had patently given other birds sufficient stimulus to join in the throng, and so in quick succession we were also treated to a chorus of dunnock, great tit and chaffinch all competing for both air space and territory in and around our garden.
Despite early spring undeniably having already begun, food was obviously still thin on the ground in the wider countryside as greenfinch, chaffinch and siskin were still fraternising the feeders in large numbers. In addition to the normal suspects, three reed buntings were happily feeding away on my ground feeder, having decided that they weren’t quite ready to desert the lush oasis of our garden for the reed beds just yet. Continuing the raptor theme from the previous day, we were also thrilled to spot three buzzards wheeling away on the thermals some 200 feet above the garden whilst making their mewing ‘peee-uu’ display call. Now vying with the sparrow-hawk as Britain’s commonest bird of prey, the buzzard was a bird I never saw as a child due to draconian persecution tactics,