How to eat peanuts with one chopstick.

It  has been so hot here that the bottom fell out of our peanut feeder. I am guessing that the wire expanded and our trustworthy feeder suddenly failed.

I had to modify it.

That seems to have done the trick.

Now the birds have to learn how to use chopsticks. It is not as easy as it looks. The young ones seem to be getting the hang of it though. It is just a question of balance.

These young Great Tits are one of my garden favourites at the moment, they look so cute.

The “Still Alive” Adorable Great Tit

Haircut

Ha Ha HA! You look like a sheep!

Okay, yes Let’s compare haircuts…

Yes well let’s talk about something else then.

There was not much Woodpecker action in the garden today and I am afraid that I have lost them. The female was here a few times but not all the time like she was before. I am pretty sure she was coming for food for the nestlings and now they are feeding themselves. They will probably disappear into the woods and be Woodpeckers now. I am still hoping for some decent shots of the juveniles before they go.

There were plenty of other birds in the garden including quite a few new Great Tits (yellow cheeks again)

Come on then, let’s compare cheeks….

..and there is a clear winner

There was another new visitor to the garden today and this visit probably had something to do with Fizz being absent at the hairdressers.

This is a Squirrel fledgling, it’s a young one that has just left the nest.

Normally problems arise when a Squirrel finds a peanut feeder but I think Fizz can handle this one. She will chase it but she will never get anywhere near it. She is a farm dog, she is not allowed in the house, sleeps in the back porch and spends most of her time in the garden. (Even though she is only just a toy dog)

Speaking of toys. earlier today I accidentally miss-threw her ball into a hedge and being so useless she was unable to retrieve it. I had to walk all the way to the nearest village to buy her a new one and when I got there they didn’t have any balls so now she has got one of these…

As toys go this is a fail.

She loves it but if she gets hold of it the walk is over. All she wants to do is beat it up, “This is what I’ll do to the Squirrel when I catch him.”

She will never catch a Squirrel (her legs are too little)

Give me my toy back!

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…..