Vindication

When you do something that flies in the face of received wisdom, or perceived ‘normality’, it’s really good to get some vindication that what you’re doing makes sense. One of the great things about gardening for wildlife is that there is plenty of vindication.

The event that brought this to mind today was looking out of the window this morning while waiting for the kettle to boil for the first cuppa of the day – and seeing two nuthatches foraging amongst the bushes. Nuthatches may not be a rare species nationally, but they certainly are in my garden. In fact, they are the first nuthatches I’ve seen in the 15 or so years we’ve lived here.

Maybe it’s a one-off but I like to think that the environment that I’ve created, with plenty of native hedging and trees, has encouraged them to visit and persuaded them to stay. Then I remembered the two goldcrests I saw at about this time last year, flitting from branch to branch on a holly bush and clearly mopping up the insects on the bark.

These are extraordinary events, of course, but there are also daily moments of vindication. Like moving a pile of twigs and seeing frogs bounding in all directions (and feeling guilty for disturbing them). Or the fleeting iridescence of dragonflies whizzing past that I mentioned in a previous post.

And, of course, there is the constant vindication of having a garden that is full of movement and sound from birds insects and other animals; nothing like the sterile, neatly manicured gardens where nature is scared to move in case it interferes with the symmetry.