So ….. I have written often about the birds in our garden – a gift from the wonderful Barb who taught me how peaceful it is to sit with the birds.

Over the past couple of weeks, in the torrential rain that has hit Ireland, the birds had taken to going into the garage – or we thought it was because of the rain. Now Daisy the cat – also known as the Bond Villain courtesy of John one of my readers – has a campy in the garage, so when we found injured or dead birds we assumed she had got them. We wondered was the weather so bad that they had been so stupid as to take their chances. Little did we know they were running from something.

Luna, one of the Lakie puppies has found her hunting ego and also came out with a couple in her mouth – we thought she had maybe killed them – in fact she did, an injured one that partly flew into the garden, which she promptly caught. The good thing when a dog kills is there is no cruelty – the necks are broken, that is it!

Oh no! We thought, she is going to start to kill the birds, But as it turns out that was not the case…

Last Sunday as RD was making some tea, he looked out of the window at the wind and the rain, and on the floor, under our heart bird feeder was a female sparrow hawk, plucking one of the sparrows. She had caught it for dinner. It was an amazing sight, nature is such a fabulous thing, but we were worried about the birds. Should we continue to feed them? Our immediate response to it was ‘no’. We should stop.

We were sad because the swifts that I believe had followed us from France, had come back to our garage every year to nest. But I realised I had not seem them, or their young for a few weeks. In fact we had sadly found two badly mangled ones in the garden. Well Luna found them,,of course she did!

I wonder if they will return? We have had swifts in our outbuilding for the last eight years, it won’t seem the same without them.

The sparrows, and Blue Tits, and Wrens were all visiting less. Tge Chaffinch didn’t seem to give a shit, he is a porker now.

But then I realised, that we should continue to feed them. They have come to rely on us now, and they will starve. This is nature. Because we have increased the bird numbers by feeding them, Nature has stepped in, and sent in the sparrow Hawk, to maintain balance. She has to eat as well.

There only seems to have been one casualty this week. I have accepted that partially re-wilding our garden, and encouraging the birds has been successful. They say that if a Sparrow hawk comes to your garden, then you are doing something right with Nature. And that is what we wanted to achieve.

Rosie