Gimme Shelter-This patch of our #Garden4Wildlife isn’t photogenic. But green #trees #shrubs & #plants provide shade for #birds in the #heatwave From a potted #Acer -Japanese #maple -to a #leafy canopy out of shot🐦s flit to a bird table & shaded birdbath, sheltering most of the day. #photography -tam

This may be among the least pretty photos we’ve ever posted. But I was desperate to capture some pictures of what green remains in our small back garden. This shows one side: an old wooden fence divides our garden from the neighbours’. In the lower left you can just about see part of our birdbath-which was moved to this side to keep the water shaded & cool. The scruffy, thin wood trunks you see form the base of a Winter-flowering Honeysuckle tree’s leafy, umbrella shaped canopy. That’s out of shot as I had to crop out housing beyond it. In the foreground is our potted Acer-a Japanese Maple-which we’ve had for many years. Amb has kept it watered thru this dreadful drought, so it still thrives & serves as shelter, perch & “take-off points” for small birds flitting from this side of the garden to a low, dense hedgerow on the other. (The bit of turquoise in the pot is an old, resin garden ornament of a turtle). All along the base of the fence dark green ivy has gradually covered the ground -(yes, all those white spots are bird poo-mostly from messy starlings🙄). Ivy’s good for birds seeking out bugs & also protects the soil beneath. There’s a variegated ivy off to the right, beneath thick trunks of lilac & Ceanothus shrubs-both past flowering but still providing both launching & shaded resting spots for birds. Our dark brown shed is on the right-actually at the back of the garden space. Hard to spot, but there’s a triangular bird-box up high on the far left end of it, partly hidden. The ground-as you can see-is desolately brown: even wildflowers/weeds have dried up. But at least there’s something of a Garden For Wildlife here: shaded water, shelter, places to find bugs. It may not be pretty, but it’s part of our small “oasis,” which we hope helps birds at least… This morning I worry that this & other pics I took yesterday evening may wind up being our only record of what we had: We could smell smoke in the distance…Wildfires are spreading all over the🇬🇧…🙏for🌧️😢~💞