Gardening and Jackdaws

The front garden. The before photo. Yipes. Full of overgrown, leggy plants, really prickly brambles that have spread through everything and huge clumps of grass. The house has been sitting empty for eight months over the main growing season and things are rampant, we had to fight our way to the front door.
I've been busy clearing the garden for a few weeks; my poor  legs and shoulders, living in a third floor flat for several years has atrophied my gardening muscles.
The garden is now clear of brambles (wow their root systems are tenacious!) and I've started to replant. I've kept some red valerian, honeysuckle and pulmonaria and have added good old cottage garden favourites -lady's mantle, rosemary, lavender, honesty, perennial geraniums, heuchera and cotoneaster for it's evergreen-ness and berries for the birds. I'm enjoying this all so much, I realise now how much I've missed having a garden these past years.
Haven't seen much bird life at all apart from crows so I want to encourage the smaller birds into the garden, I miss the blue tits and robins we used to see all the time in Buckinghamshire. Perhaps they're not so common out here on the Somerset levels?
The jackdaws are fascinating though, they talk to each other all the time with a varied vocal repertoire, flying across the rooftops in a huge group then separating off into pairs, preening and cackling away. Note to self: Find a book about corvids.

Reading: Year One, Nora Roberts -early days, not sure I like it
Watching: Vikings/American Gods
Listening: Nick Drake -autumnal for some reason