This time it was sparrows, parents and dependent youngsters and the more mature juveniles, able to feed themselves, who were scrapping over the coconut feeder. A parent would park a fluttering fledgling, still using its wing beats to steady its stance on the thin branch above as much as to engage with the adult, and… Continue reading Cunning matches youth…
Tag: sparrows
Waterworks and acrobatics…
How many sparrows can you get in a water tray? It has been scorchingly hot today and I had to refill the water dishes twice, after the starlings had sprayed it in all directions – the lily of the valley plants close by are appreciating the attention. The families of sparrows and there were close… Continue reading Waterworks and acrobatics…
The light and the shade…
Some moments went as expected this morning, some were new and some saw the darker elements of this world emerge. When I pulled up the kitchen blind this morning, there was a male woodpecker at the vertical on the peanut wire cone. One of the older blackbird fledglings has discovered that he can peel the… Continue reading The light and the shade…
Packing them in…
Today was a blur of sparrows. The parents and fledglings barely left the garden, even when the jackdaws were shooed away, they went as far as the hedge motel and then returned to the caged feeder where the adults went behind the wire to prise out part of the nuts. The problem for the adult… Continue reading Packing them in…
If there’s a rustle in the hedgerow…
The snow-in-summer has grown both outwards, so that it’s curving about the closest roses, and upwards with longer stalks holding the delicate white daisylike flowers. However, now the foraging sparrows really are invisible, bar a thrashing and waving of the foliage, until they emerge abruptly at the edge of the clump and fall down to… Continue reading If there’s a rustle in the hedgerow…
Oops…
Whilst the good weather meant that I had to refill the small water tray after the song thrush had been for a bath, elsewhere there were great comings and goings all along the wall of the rosebed today. The wren worked conscientiously through the stones, busily disappearing into the little tunnels and dark cracks. It… Continue reading Oops…
Lunch with the sparrows…
There is a little group of sparrows, what looks like one male and three females, who are working steadily through the rosebed. The roses are now showing a lot of leaf and once they’ve investigated the depths of the snow-in-summer, almost disappearing amongst the blue-grey foliage, they go from rose to rose searching for insects.… Continue reading Lunch with the sparrows…
Spring is sprung
In barely a couple of days, the character of the garden seems to have changed, as though the birds had been watching the calendar for the clocks moving forward. There are fewer coming to the feeders and suddenly the spug motel is become a house of ill repute. There are undignified skirmishes between males that… Continue reading Spring is sprung
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 