An English Country Garden.

A Humming Bird.

The story so far in case you are not familiar with this blog: this is the first time for many years that we have lived in this climate; the climate of Great Britain with its four seasons.

We have been here for quite a few Christmases but that was only for a week at the most, but this time we are here all the time; there is no reprieve from this climate so we have to grin and bear it.

Some people like the four seasons, but I have never thought about it apart from appreciating it since we've been back. It was lovely to see the autumn leaves which had fallen from the trees and, indeed, I didn't mind sweeping them up and putting them into 'gardening' bags for the council to collect – they are due to collect this coming Monday and I have three full bags as there were a lot of leaves; and that was only from the front yard and the side where we park the car.

There is room for about four or even five cars at the side where we park and that is part of this property, so you can imagine the leaves, as the little car park is surrounded by trees; the car park or drive is about twenty five to thirty square yards and is surrounded by a small brick wall and a wooden fence which sheilds our rear garden.

Since we have been back, the winter has been relatively mild; not any where near as mild as Los Angeles, but we have seen a lot of sun; the sun is very weird here in the winter as it's so low in the sky it blinds you as you drive.

As I walk in this weather the fresh air hits me in the face and, because I'm walking fast, my body is warm and the thrill and comfort of getting back indoors is quite stimulating.

We are very fortunate to have central heating so the house is reasonably warm when we wake in the mornings and, indeed, I go in to the garden scantily dressed – but I wouldn't dream of sitting out like that.

I go out for a second or two to put food down for the birds and squirrels; when I do this I come back indoors and look through one of the windows, and the first thing I see is a robin; the robin must live close to where I drop the food as he or she is there in seconds.

He hops onto a step looking all around, then hops down to where the food is, takes a morsel, jumps back onto the step then flies up to the nest.

Then it goes quiet for a few minutes; next up will be a sparrow who doesn't come near the food but prefers to stay in the grass and look for seeds or whatever. Now as soon as I come in I hear the crows squawking above as if they are telling each other there is food.

The sparrow seems to ignore what's going on above but is hooshed off by the squirrel when he arrives; he eats more nuts than seeds and sits upright with whatever he is eating held between his two paws; apparently squirrels are either right or left handed. I was thinking of this when I was watching one the other day and wondering how we know that – and why!

As the squirrel eats, the crows above squawk louder and louder and I have seen a couple of crows land quite near to the squirrel to frighten him away; the few times I have seen this, the squirrel has eventually high tailed out of there with his tail – high!

As soon a he starts to run the crows take off again, their job done.

I can't stay there all day but I do notice over the hours that all the food goes; maybe the crows wait for me to go to eat.

The feeding of the birds and squirrels is only for my amusement; they wouldn't starve without me, but when it snows the state of affairs will be different; also if the ground gets hard with frost they might need me.

In Los Angeles I would see different birds on our balcony; there I would see humming birds; when you see a humming bird first of all they look a bit like big bumble bees but when you get close you can see how beautiful they are; they are the only birds who can fly backwards and that's amazing to see.

In Los Angeles, the crows eat the humming birds, so I am told, and I am also told that the crows eat 'road kill' here in the UK.

Above rock'n'roll Ralphs in Hollywood is a parking lot, and one day, whilst I was going into Ralphs, a crow flew quite close to the elevator door and flew straight into a class petition; as soon as it hit the glass it fell to the floor. I went over and picked it up and as I cupped my other hand around it I could feel he was limp, but eventually he came to and started to move. Then he turned his head right around and looked in to my face.

Someone came up to me and said 'he's full of fleas' but I could see he wasn't; then a woman came to me and disagreed with the first person and said she had nursed a few crows and they were very clean.

As soon as I felt the crow was fit I let him go and he flew to the end of the car park, by the Ralphs lifts again, and straight into the same window.

I had to pick him up again but this time, when he came round, I walked to the top of the car park, where there were no windows and when I let him go he flew off to freedom.

There were always crows by our building in Hollywood, and I noticed that sometimes they would make a clicking sound; I don't know what this meant but when I did it a few times to them I took a chance that it wasn't a mating call - but it seemed to make them quiet.

I don't know much about birds and nature and I'm sure the birds and animals of the wild don't know much about it either and don't know the names that man has given them.

One time in Hollywood I was standing on the top of a building having a few drinks with someone who was leaving the company in the building; he was keeping a couple of large owls. He worked for the wild life preservation people and it was time to let the owls go – had to set them free.

He brought one of them up to the roof and I seem to remember he had it wrapped in some kind of sheet and wore gauntlets.

The owl looked at peace and the other people that were there, inquisitively looked at the bird with caution and puzzlement; the fella holding the owl held it up and let it go.

The owl kind of dropped, then lifted up and flew into the distance flying north towards Mullholland Drive and a group of trees maybe a few miles in the distance. As soon as it took to the skies, other birds came from nowhere; crows, of course, and other birds which were a lot smaller.

It was as if the birds had the area under guard and as soon as they saw an alien – a bird of prey - they took to the skies; the owl steered its way through and a few birds went close to it but the owl carried on.

The guy told us that he knew that would happen and the same thing happened when he let the other owl go; that too flew steadfastly on.

It reminded me of the time I worked as an ice cream man in Wolverhampton, when I took the ice cream van to a new area and was approached by an Italian Mister Softie who didn't want me there and . . .. but that's for another day maybe; maybe.