Spotted in the climbing roses

We have triplets! Three little spotted flycatchers have fledged. Two years ago, this rare bird made a nest in the ivy against a tree trunk in our woodland. Last year only one adult arrived from Africa, and he couldn’t find a mate, so he disappeared. This year we hardly dared hope. Then, early in summer, I saw one trying out our electricity meter ledge for size. He sat on the plastic slope just behind the cotoneaster.

‘Don’t nest there,’ I thought as I eyed him through the kitchen window. It was too near the house, too low down and too near the back door. He had no mate again, so he flew off, only to return the following week with a female. They eyed our climbing rose.

‘Don’t nest there,’ I thought, because it is right next to the patio doors, too low down and only just above our outdoor table and chairs. But they nested there, taking a week to build a nest about six foot from the ground. They brought grass and little twigs, then white feathers from the chicken run, they wedged them behind a rose briar. The female laid her eggs and for two weeks she sat while the male fed her.

We locked the patio door and did not prune the rose. We did not use our outdoor chairs and table. Visitors stared gloomily out of the window. “I couldn’t tell it from a sparrow,” said a friend. “Watch,” I said. The flycatcher sat on the back of our chair then flew a short distance, grabbed a damsel fly from the air, and returned to its perch. It always returns.

For the next two weeks the parents fed their young, catching insects along our border, as if it was a street of take-away shops. They fought all comers, clearing other birds away.

Then three little fledglings peeped over the edge and flew, one by one, to the woodland. Now we can open the patio doors, sit on our outdoor seats and prune the rose. But I miss our flycatchers and hope they return next year.