Summer Birds

We are having a storm here but it is quite a nice storm with strong warm winds. Warm makes all the difference.  It has been blowing all night and so I found myself sitting outside at four o’clock this morning enjoying the wind buffeting the trees.

I am kicking off with birds today and perhaps the weather will brighten up in a bit. I have seen some beautiful birds this year.

Unlike the butterflies I don’t have to say goodbye to the birds. A couple of lightweights have gone south, fair enough but winter is a wonderful time for watching birds.

Here are a few birds that have featured here this summer.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Sizewise it is about as “great” as a starling. Quite a small bird but it has wonderful presence. The female turned up about a month before the male and made herself at home.

She was on the feeder every time that I looked out of the window.

Eventually the male started visiting us too.

Great Spotted Woodpeckers don’t really eat peanuts. As a species they are totally dependant on dead wood habitat and the insects that live therein.

The juveniles visited us for a few weeks but their arrival signalled the end of the visits. They have been missing from the garden for the last couple of months.

Meanwhile… out on the waters edge…

Mandarin ducks nest high in trees often in old woodpecker holes. Once hatched the chicks have to leap out of the nest and plummet thirty or forty feet to the ground because they are ducks not woodpeckers. They are very light and survive the fall. It is a spectacle that I would really like to video.

Meanwhile out on the farm….

This is a Red Legged Partridge, an introduced species. Introduced for the shooting they are quite common here. My bedroom overlooks fields and I can actually lie in bed and watch these birds through my window but I still have to get out of bed to get decent pictures. No situation is perfect 🙂

Goldfinches played a major role in our summer. My new landlord’s favourite bird, he had never had them in the garden. They love sunflower hearts and I filled the garden with them.

This is a juvenile Goldfinch.

Goldfinches were not the only birds breeding here. The one that got the most blog space was the Barn Swallow. There are lots of swallow nestling videos on this blog but for me the best bit was when they first arrived.

They are supposed to mate for life. Some of the birds are just finding their mate. Some of them are  reuniting. They fuss over each other so much. It is lovely to watch.

It would do no good telling me that birds are not capable of emotions. They greet each other with all the excitement of a puppy meeting it’s owner. I have also seen them mourn when they have lost a brood. These are very emotional birds.

Throughout the summer we had all manner of new arrivals, too many to show them all here.

Blackbirds raised a brood in a tractor.

Despite a very wet start to the year the Blue Tits were also very successful.

Blue Tits have a large brood and all of that feeding can leave mum feeling a little bit frazzled.

(This bird is actually just moulting, perfectly healthy and happy, or it might be a Zombie Blue Tit, they do happen, I think 🙂 )

The bird that had the greatest success was the House Sparrow. They can have several broods in a year and our birds had a constant supply of food this summer, they made the most of it.

There are dozens of them and they have been moving around the farm in small flocks. So much so that I was beginning to worry that I was upsetting the balance of nature… Until today that is…

I filled the feeders up three days ago and they haven’t been touched, something is wrong.

This Sparrowhawk has visited the garden a couple of times this year. He hasn’t stayed very long and hasn’t caused any big problems. It is nice to see him.

I saw him or another just like him this morning. Now he is in his full adult plumage and looks quite beautiful. (no photos yet)

To have had any impact on my Sparrow hordes he must have taken up residence or more likely his presence is just keeping the birds away from the feeders. Today I am on Sparrowhawk watch.

and looking forward to a great winter of wonderful birds.

Hey! Look at the pretty face.

Yesterday I was accosted by a Red Legged Partridge. Show us your legs….

He wanted to do a photo shoot…

I said, “But I have already done the Red Legged Partridge.” and he said, “You didn’t get my best side.”

He did have a good point, not all birds have such a pretty face.

So I agreed to take some snaps of him. I hope you like them.

Hey’ look at the pretty face.

The Beautiful Game (Part Two)

This is a Red Legged Partridge.

Fizz and I were out hunting for wild flowers. We had all of our camouflage gear on so that we could creep up on them unnoticed and so of course this bird didn’t see us until it was too late.

We may have set out to hunt wild flowers but a hunt is a hunt and I will shoot anything when I am in that kind of a mood. I expect that you would have done the same.

Anyway this was a particularly stroppy bird. When he did see us he wasn’t going to give way. He strutted up and down on the top of his hedge cackling and crowing at us, puffing out his chest.

Eventually Fizz and I let him have the day. We were not scared, just sensible. He was a big Red Legged Partridge.

The Beautiful Game (part one)

Subtitle: Regional colour variation in species Phasianus colchicus, the Common Pheasant.

Well, the first time I saw this bird I thought it was a Badger.

I know that it doesn’t look an awful lot like a Badger now and I am supposed to be a bit of an expert on Badgers. (Badgers have four legs)

The first time I saw it I was walking down a narrow and overgrown country lane toward a Badger main sett. Fizz was with me and way ahead of us I could see an animal running along the track dodging through the undergrowth. I thought that it was moving like a bird but all that I could really see was it’s silver back and the only thing that I could think of that size and colour was a Badger.

I know better now.. (Badgers can’t fly)

I have seen it three times now. After photographing it in this field I saw it again on the Badger track in exactly the same circumstances and this time I had no trouble identifying it as a bird. (My expertise grows)

I always think of Pheasants as brown birds and so I had to ask the question why is mine this colour. What I found out was that there is a lot of colour variation in pheasants and this one isn’t particularly unusual. Also colour variation tends to be regional and that means we might have quite a few silver backs around here.

So it might not be the same bird that I keep meeting.

I have done some research myself into this question of regional colour variation.

I looked out of my bedroom window.

I am not sure. They don’t look particularly silver to me. One of them is a bit silver. I will have to find some more.

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..