The Blackbird’s Nest
It is early May. Three weeks ago we confirmed that a pair of blackbirds were building a nest in the honeysuckle hedge that grows through the trellis only a few metres from our back door.
The spot had been used for a few years by a nesting pair, but was left empty last year, I think because I had worked on a number of necessary repairs to the trellis and built a timber platform near the area during the time that the birds may have been scoping out a nest site. Or perhaps for that year they simply found somewhere better.
By good fortune the nest is partially visible from my window. It is only 15 feet from where I sit now, just above head height, and an arms depth into the hedge.
I have been happy to see the birds flying in and out of the nest over the last few weeks with both of them coming back and forth with mouthfuls of twigs to improve the site.
The female bird spent a lot of time yesterday hopping around the top pond, tugging lichen from the tumbled Yorkshire wall stone and then carrying tufts back to line the nest.
For the last two mornings we’ve been woken at 5 am by the aggressive chatter of marauding magpies. I keep a close watch on the bird activity in the garden and had noticed the magpies much more lately. A week ago I counted nine in our largest tree, I’d never seen that many in the garden at once before.
This week, there are a pair of magpies who have been pestering the blackbirds, and throughout most of the days disturbing the nest building - unless I am in the garden, then they slink off, to my eyes, seemingly bashful and ashamed of their uncontrollable instinctual bullying behaviour.
They rarely disappear completely and will perch in the more distant trees and wait for me to leave before inevitably resuming their assault, stomping around in the honeysuckle and poking his beak around the nest.
It will be an interesting drama to watch. I’m already siding with the blackbirds, which I know this is unfair, but it is hard not to have this response in the face what appears as bullying.
The blackbirds are also following their instinct and continue as best they can, undeterred. It is bittersweet to see the effort they are putting in when the circumstances make failure the most likely outcome.
Once a nest has been discovered by the magpie, they rarely leave it alone, unless an easier target becomes available. However they nest in the birch tree on the other side of the house, so I doubt they’ll stop or find an alternative, but we can hope.
