Jonathan & Denise >

Either side of the drive leading up to our house there’s big stands of New Zealand Flax (Phormium Tenax), and some of these have become so big and sprawling that they make it difficult to get a vehicle up and down the drive. So, after morning coffee, we resolved our garden task of the day would be to pulling out leaves from within the plant, clear up dead and decaying leaves around the base, shred all the waste and then put it on the compost, any new plantlets growing around the base of the mother plant being saved for planting elsewhere. Having assembled all our tools, work gloves, barrows, garden shredder, we approached the first flax plant, only to discover that someone had beaten us to it!

An Gàrradh Mòr : Redstart chicks

We found this nest wedged between the stiff vertical leaves at the middle of the plant, at about half height.  The nest is woven with the dead flax leaves that litter the ground below and between adjacent plants. Shortly after we moved away, a female adult returned to the nest, and from her appearance (brown, with a pale breast speckled with dark spots – similar to a Thrush) we believe her to be a Redstart.