A jackdaw at its nest in the ash tree

This ash tree at the end of our garden is rooted onto the steep slope running down to the Lime Brook about sixty feet below. The slope steepens at the end of our garden and the land becomes rather scrubby with trees and shrubs growing up where grazing animals found it hard to keep a foothold. The farmland has been rather abandoned in recent years and I fear for its future. In former years when we first moved here in the early 2010s cows would roam right up to the end of our garden, at the base of this tree. 

The ash tree is in trouble and its highest limbs have been steadily falling. Rot has set into the trunk, and this has allowed `birds to carve out holes in the relatively rotten wood. It started with a green woodpeckers nest, then a great spotted woodpecker. Squirrels have attempted to take over, and now jackdaws are in possession.

In the rather gloomy light this morning I thought I’d record the jackdaws in the nest before the foliage grows to obscure my view. I stood in the doorway of the dining room with an extender on the lens. I like the reach it provided but unless the light is very bright, the image quality gets very reduced. So here is a snap of a jackdaw watching me watching it.

I am now wondering whether more limbs of the tree, or even its main trunk will survive the next storm. Some years ago while sitting at my desk I heard a loud noise and looked up and out of my study window and saw another large ash tree about thirty yards down the valley as it keeled over. It’s trunk is still lying on the steep hillside, gradually rotting into the earth.