I woke this morning to the sound of a gale howling across our back garden. I didn’t need to worry about the fence blowing down though…it had already been slowly removed over the last four years, so we now have a hedge of bramble and clematis on one side and a slowly developing hedge of hawthorn, blackthorn, elder and other native species down the other side of the garden.
Today’s excitement wasn’t in the hedges though – it was in the air over the garden as the local Jackdaws did that thing they do when it’s windy; almost beak-to-tail chases vertically up, and then back down, before a group of birds all gathered together and seemed to place themselves at the mercy of the elements. Are they just being blown about, or do they make the decision to place themselves on that particular rollercoaster? The joie de vivre of Corvus monedula.