One of the best buys I made for my garden was a bird bath. It has given extraordinary pleasure to me in watching the antics of birds that drop by my garden, but most of all it has been a place of refreshment for my feathered friends.

It is a joy to watch the bathing ritual of birds – blackbirds are my favourites. I caught this one splashing just as he was about to leave the garden. You can see how soggy he became!

Sometimes if the bath is very full, smaller birds find it too deep. Watching a wren trying to bathe, it simply disappears from my view! I keep a shallow plant saucer of water below the bath as an alternative. This can provide hilarious entertainment as birds try to splash around in the shallow water. But it is used, so I continue to maintain it & freshen the water.

While out today I watched a family of sparrows having fun taking a bath – a dust bath! The chirping of these little birds first caught my attention, then I could see them along a rough un-adopted road. The family seemed to take it in turns to freshen their feathers. Alongside the road is an old hedge – hence the attraction to the sparrows. It made me think how few sparrows we now see – hedges around my neighbourhood have sadly disappeared, many in favour of wooden fence panels. I guess this is simply a choice of practicality & less maintenance. How I mourn the loss of hedges that were rich sources of food & shelter for wildlife. Now a run of wooden fence panels stand, stark, bare, simply providing a climb frame for squirrels or resting perch for birds. But they tend not to come, there is no purpose in their dropping by.

Okay the bird in this photo isn’t bathing, but he is adorable! Do you recognise him? It’s a young robin. Now I did have a shot of him facing the camera & no he’s not got his red chest as yet, but from this angle you can see the colour of his feathers more clearly. His tail & wings brown, his back & top of his head mottled brown – the colour of his juvenile plumage. His stance gave away his species – he posed in typical robin fashion & jumped round from his vantage spot to see us. I think he looks gorgeous.

But had I not stopped to look closely round the garden I would have failed to spot him. I think he looks perfect perched on the edge of this pot & the houseleeks growing here seem to compliment the picture.