Today the medieval gold of the greenfinch returned again to the cone feeder and when it was ousted from the feeder by a starling, it came closer to the house, where a little gleam of sunshine made it glow. A subsequent visitor was a vertical woodpecker – the large male working individual nuts out of… Continue reading Taking their own sweet time…
Author: baebell
More-or-less retired academic in the lively arts.
Feeed me…
We seem to have entered a period, if not of confusion, of change and disruption because some of the birds look to be between broods. The adult blackbird is collecting seed and fat and is disappearing behind the snow-in-summer to feed something which is parked in a safe location, whilst at the same time it… Continue reading Feeed me…
No longer welcome…
Today, was a blend of browns and cream, with the occasional block of black. I had to remove three or four of the jackdaws several times this morning. They scare off everything else, except the wood pigeon of course, although the other birds seem to have learnt not to go too far, because they return… Continue reading No longer welcome…
There are friends missing…
I have missed many of the little birds over the last few weeks – presumably many have been nesting, but some will have moved on to other habitats. Now that the fruit trees are in leaf, the bullfinches no longer visit and it has been some time since I saw the solitary marsh bunting. Early… Continue reading There are friends missing…
A change in the weather…
It’s gone cold again, with a couple of sharp hailshowers and driving rain. The garden was calmer today, with a ‘normal’ number of ring doves, the wood pigeon, a handful of sparrows and chaffinches and I saw one of the thrushes. It was simply sitting on the fence, so I took it to be a… Continue reading A change in the weather…
An invasion of hungry mouths…
There is a cheerful picture of a robin on the front of the package of mealworms – or possibly a picture of a cheerful robin. I haven’t seen much of the robin recently amidst the organised chaos of the larger birds and their entourages of fledglings. It forages around the edges of the crowd; however,… Continue reading An invasion of hungry mouths…
A little bit of angst…
It’s been a grumpy sort of day. Quite apart from the cold, damp, weather there have been disputes all over the garden. The first was an unexpected spat between what appeared to be a male and a female blackbird. There was a mix of seed and mealworms spread on the grass and they were several… Continue reading A little bit of angst…
There comes a point…
The rain arrived mid-afternoon. Hopefully it will encourage the bugs, slugs and snails that our birds love. Not, obviously, to the point that they decimate the fruit bushes, but enough to have a good supply of soft protein for the nestlings…and the insistent fledglings. A few of the adults seem to be trying to wean… Continue reading There comes a point…
A little bit of magic
Some of the fledglings haven’t yet learned to avoid human beings and this morning there were two young thrushes under the table just outside the sunroom. I was surprised at how slim they were. Whereas the starlings and sparrows have scrawny parents and are fat fluffy balls, these beautiful creatures were almost carbon copies of… Continue reading A little bit of magic
Heat…
It has been very hot today and a lot of birds have kept to the shade of the trees. I was putting out the seed this morning, adding a handful of dried mealworms to the coconut feeder when a thrush jumped down from the rosebed to rummage through the leaf litter at the base of… Continue reading Heat…
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 