Watch for the birds

smart

For a few weeks the birds in evidence in town have been jackdaws and other crows, gulls, including one that could not find its way out of St Thomas’ church, and members of the pigeon family. They do things their own way: last week I saw a half eggshell of a wood pigeon, but a town pigeon landed just in front of my bike to retrieve a lost stick needed for nest building on the old post office.

Precious little sight or sound of the song birds until this week. We were sitting under the trees at the Glebe when two robins began to sing quietly to each other just above our heads. Surely a couple. Then a happy surprise when our 4 year old blackbird reappeared. You may just distinguish his identifying white spots.

Happy Autumn!

Respecting the neighbours

Mrs T eventually got to trimming the ivy hedge that grows over our garden wall and helps keeps intruders out. It will never be a masterpiece of topiary, but it is held in check with annual or biannual trimmings.

The main reason for delaying the trim is shown below: the birds nest in it. This blackbird’s nest does not have its lining of mud. Was it abandoned unfinished for some reason, or was it impossible to find the right sort of mud in this driest of summers? For sure the blackbirds raised two broods in the hedge this year.

Here is a fledgling from a few years ago, quite convinced he is invisible.

We recommend respecting the neighbours, they will repay you with interest — plenty of interest as you watch them go about their business.

Let the hedge grow till August, when the last chicks are fledged. Make sure they can get to water for drinking and bathing; ours like the tiny pond opposite the hedge. It gets plenty of shade and is full of oxygenating plants, mostly self-invited. We wish we had more frogs, but our last cock blackbird had been watching the kingfishers, I think, because he had learnt to catch tadpoles to feed his offspring. This year it seemed as though more survived to grow legs and make for dry land. Let’s hope so.

Des Res for Wrens?

We were given a wren house for Christmas, I placed it in our riverside hedge at the Glebe garden where I work with disabled gardeners in non-pandemic times. Needless to say, the wrens nested under the opposite hedge, in the heap of scrap timber I was going to tidy away – I’m glad they were spotted in time!

The parent wrens were quite happy to fly very close to my workmate when he was sawing away, almost on their flight path.

On the other hand, we had at home a similar box for bluetits, hung on our house wall and surrounded by pyracantha, a thorny evergreen. Two years running, and again after a year’s break, the blackbirds built on top of it. After that we did have blue tits (like chickadees) two years running. I think they prefer old wood to the smell of new.

The wrens’ house is hidden in the hedge opposite.

A determined struggle.

Image

I could not resist sharing this little story. I am more inclined to believe this happened in a cast iron Royal Mail box, like the one below, rather than a private householder’s gatebox, as shown above. WT.

Rowfant [a small village in Sussex] was once the scene of one of the most determined struggles in history. The contestants were a series of Titmice and the G.P.O., and the account of the war may be read in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington:—

“In 1888, a pair of the Great Titmouse (Parus major) began to build their nest in the post-box which stood in the road at Rowfant, and into which letters, &c., were posted and taken out by the door daily. One of the birds was killed by a boy, and the nest was not finished. In 1889, a pair completed the nest, laid seven eggs, and began to sit; but one day, when an unusual number of post-cards were dropped into, and nearly filled, the box, the birds deserted the nest, which was afterwards removed with the eggs. In 1890, a pair built a new nest and laid seven eggs, and reared a brood of five young, although the letters posted were often found lying on the back of the sitting bird, which never left the nest when the door of the box was opened to take out the letters. The birds went in and out by the slit.

From Highways and Byways in Sussex by E. V. Lucas.

Not this box, but probably one very like it.



Swallows returning

Swallows were being discussed on the radio this morning, but no, we have not yet seen any around here, though we’ve had blackcaps and willow warblers among the UK’s migrants. This photograph of swallows’ nests was taken a few years ago at Brant Brougham near Lincoln at snowdrop time, so these were the previous year’s nests which might well have been reused a couple of months later.

It’s rather delightful that they should have built against the roof boss of the pelican on her nest. And the picture brings to mind the famous verse from the Psalms:

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. Psalm 84.3

Going Viral XXI: Fellow residents.

Working from home, our daughter and son looked out of their windows. One spotted a sparrow, nesting in a hole in our brickwork ; the other a red admiral butterfly who, as a caterpillar must have found a safe place to sleep through the winter but woke to a strange new world one warm May morning. Lovely to look up from the screen to see such sights!

Laudato Si!

For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Psalm 83.4

Parallel lives

Mrs T often comments that we are allowed to use the birds’ territory for our garden. Two examples of this today.

It was time to prune the apricot tree, but some of that must be postponed. As I cut through a shoot some 3 metres above the ground I saw that the fork leading to it was occupied by a brooding collared dove. I’d seen the nest before, but it was built while we were away for a few days, and I thought it had been abandoned as a silly place to build. It was a silly place to build, but it was not abandoned, so it will have to be respected. Unless she abandons it again.

The second example was the cock blackbird, leading one of his daughters around the garden, demonstrating the art of pecking food from the floor, or even aphids from the prunings of the apricot tree, while we sat at our evening meal. At least it is peaceful co-existence; neither doves nor blackbirds are aggressive thieves, unlike the Canada geese in the Royal Parks!

Baby blackbird from a previous summer.

Just a moment!

There are moments – split seconds – worth recording in memory that one could never on camera. One such was given to me yesterday, walking home from church alongside a hedgerow. Up to the surface popped what some call a dunnock but I still think of as a hedge-sparrow. All resplendent in best spring plumage, it had in its bill a down feather from a pigeon.

And then we parted.

Those eggs will be cosy, the chicks warm and snug till they grow their own feathers, then off and away!

Steve Childs – https://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_childs/8665114609/

 

 

Mice with Wings

Ten winters ago we put the nesting box in the pyracantha outside the kitchen window. Blackbirds have built on top of it, twice, and small birds have used it as a winter roost, but now it holds a blue tits’ nest. These tiny creatures, also known as titmice, are close relatives to chickadees.

I’m glad to have them around, since they eat  lots of insects, including the aphids on the apricot tree. So the tree never gets sprayed to keep them fed and the garden alive with birds. Mrs Turnstone is mighty pleased, and it’s a joy to see the cock fly in under cover of the bushes along the public footpath. I think Mrs Bluetit is still sitting on eggs.

Meanwhile, as well as the starling in the eaves nearby, there is a robin in next door’s yew and somewhere in the ivy on the wall is Mrs Blackbird. Collared doves are in the birch, wood pigeons in the lime planted after the hurricane, while a hedge sparrow singing opposite the kitchen window means his hen must be nearby. House sparrows seem not to be nesting with us this Spring, but before now they’ve had the second brood above our bed after a first elsewhere. The cuckoo I’ve not heard for a week or more which is probably good news for the hedge sparrow.

Our roses are at least two weeks behind last year coming into bloom. No Mermaid yet, nor Alberic Barbier; there are some roses in South facing gardens up the street, but turning onto the footpath there is a noticeable drop in temperature out of the sun and into what can be a wind tunnel, channelling the SouthWesterlies that come along the road opposite.