One of the things I love about being down at the allotment is the wildlife we are surrounded by, quite often things you just don’t see unless you are quietly weeding a bed or planting out seedlings.
A few weeks ago I was clearing a bed, ready to plant some young leeks, when I was joined by a small friend. I’ve always found robins to be the bravest/friendliest of birds (with the exception of my hens who can be positively brazen!) and this one was landing within arms reach.
This young robin was braver than previous visitors and definitely new to our part of the allotment, how could I tell? easy, he was the most tufty looking robin I’ve seen.
I have no doubt this one will be very fat, very quickly, as he jumped down to the earth to pick out wee bugs as I was working on clearing away the weeds and turning over the soil, he had no fear of me, that was for certain!
We are also lucky enough to have a couple of bee hives, down on plots nearby to ours, on the allotment. Watching them bumble from one flower to another is fascinating, especially when they become fully laden with pollen.
All in all our allotment is heaving with wildlife, we have squirrels, fox, a couple of cats who come over to hunt the rats and mice and my favourite, the slow worm. I can’t tell you how excited I was to discover slow worms as I was digging out the compost bin. I’m happy to say none were hurt and all relocated to the other end of the plot to a compost heap which is now their little sanctuary.
Of course I have no love lost for the snails, slugs, aphids and caterpillars, but I find the rest of the wee beasties down there quite beautiful in their own way. Apologies if you don’t like bugs, but they really are worth taking a second look at, unless of course, they’re in the house, in which case they can leave and never be seen again!!
