Our house is a small stone cottage about two hundred or more years old.
We have wooden painted window frames, a stone roof and roses round the door.
We love it. However, we also have rising damp, a subterranean kitchen and pantry, bubbly plaster, too much moss everywhere, a roof which leaks whatever we do to it and the stone is so old that it is degrading and letting the rain come straight through.
In other words, it is a haven for wildlife, both inside and out. But I love wildlife so that is no problem. Large spiders which live in the same spot all year round and have their regular routes round the house at the same time each day. Similarly woodlice which I am constantly rescuing from sinks and drowning and dry spots of the house, there are a few, to save them from drying out. Our garden is surrounded by dry stone walls and in the crevices between the stones live yet more invertebrates.
And the local birds know this very well. At this time of year the Blue Tits and Great Tits are pecking around in the walls, lifting great chunks of moss and excavating for bugs. These birds often also investigate the house walls because under the eaves and around the wooden gutters are further hordes of nutritious insects. The wooden window frames have spiders’ nests in the corners and woodlice and small beetles residing between the wood and stone. Being warm at the moment I often have the windows open during the day: one day this week as I sat working upstairs a Blue Tit flew straight through one window, it had been looking for, and found, insects just on the edge of the window sill, and flew round the room to another window (which was shut) and began investigating the surround to that window on the inside, for yet further insects.
(photo from google clearly taken in the winter!)
I froze still and it took a while before the bird noticed me. However, once it did, it beat itself frantically against the glass, trying to escape. What disturbed it most were my open eyes watching it: I thought that if I moved it might damage itself, so I shut my eyes and sat like a statue waiting for it to find its way out. It calmed down when it could no longer see my eyes and I heard some fluttering and flying sounds: no longer frantic though. After about five minutes it had worked its way round the room, back to the open window whence it had arrived and departed, much to my relief and I am sure to the relief of us both.
We have nest boxes on the sheltered end of the house where both Blue Tits and Great Tits rear families each year: around now the first clutch of fledgelings are out and about getting to know the ropes and searching for food, hence the juvenile’s mistake I think. They all provide a constant cheery chatter round the garden and yet another reason to procrastinate and stand with a cup of tea watching through the windows!
stopping by woods 