Outside the front door, over the path and border where the meadow lawn comes up closest to our house, is an old apple tree. I’m grateful to it for its beautiful spring blossom and juicy crisp apples and the flaking bark of its gnarled limbs must provide hiding spaces and shelter for numerous insects and other invertebrates because I sometimes catch sight of the greater spotted woodpecker on one of his visits when he hops up and down the branches poking his beak into the nooks and crannies as he searches for a meal.
There are much easier pickings in the feeders which hang from the branches, peanuts, fat balls, sunflower hearts and nyger seed which the goldfinches love. Out of the kitchen windows there is almost constant movement, blue, great, coal and long tailed tits are happy to join the goldfinches and share, but jackdaws and rooks being far too heavy swing precariously and knock everything to the floor where they’re joined by dunnocks and wood pigeons hoovering up the remains.
Occasionally I see all the birds scatter in panic as the guided missile that’s the sparrowhawk streaks through. He almost always misses, then preening to hide his embarrassment, sits for a while on a branch to recover his composure. Sadly, most birds treat me with the same mistrust and avoidance as the sparrowhawk, but there have been a few magic moments this summer when fledgling goldfinches have overshot the feeders and flown right inside through the open door, too young to have learned to be fearful, they have waited quietly for rescue.
Holding a tiny life in the palms of my hands is a very precious gift and one more reason to be thankful to the old apple tree.
