Big Garden Birdwatch

My feathered friends

Can you hear me love?

It may be a far cry from the exotic worlds so readily available today via High Definition TV, with the soft sound track of David Attenborough, but our garden is full of life, and some of it is very colourful.

It's not a big garden, and it is a little dark, with a huge laurel hedge on one side, opposite the house, and two ivy covered fences on the sides.  Some birds don't trust it, and so where we used to have jackdaws and magpies, there's now more food for the others.  

Robins are very territorial, and this one has claimed our garden for his own. He is quite fussy, and sometimes gives other species a bit of hassle, but most of the time he is pretty accommodating.

I was surprised therefore when I saw this the other day:

Which led to this:

Which could have been nasty, except that I had forgotten that sunshine means spring, and spring means making eggs, while the sun shines.  It must have been a bit of a shock when the next day it snowed!

I would love to say we get all sorts in our garden, and we do occasionally get visitors - I recently saw a female Blackcap here, who must be overwintering, but I didn't manage to get her photo, and I saw four Long-tailed tits fly over before Christmas, and we often get Coal tits in the summer - but in general the population is as you see in these pictures, all taken in the last week:

Blue tits are quite common, and they have nested here in some years, though as they are so little, I don't think their survival rate is that high....

Handsome Great tits also pop in to grab some seeds, but they are quicker to flit in and out than the little Blues.

I won't admit to having favourites, but I am very fond of the House Sparrows that are regulars at our feeders.  They may not be very tuneful, but they are sociable birds, and though perhaps a little scruffy, they can be very smart when they make the effort:

The males have fetching grey caps, and fashionable stubble:

The Hedge Sparrow, or Dunnock, is no relation, and prefers scratching about on the ground in the flower beds to dining at the feeders.  I used to think they were drab little birds, but they're not, being kitted out with a tweedy sort of suit and whispy trousers, and their agile movements and bright eyes go quite well with their extraordinary breeding habits, which effectively mean that if you have three Dunnocks in your garden you may well have at least two pairs.....

Blackbirds do well here, and their varied diet means that they are happy at the table and just as happy on the ground, where they will take worms and slugs and grubs, turning their heads so they can see what's going on (strangely they do not have parallax vision, so each eye is only covering one side).

The male stands out, with his coal black feathers and gold beak and eye rings, but the female is no less a bird, with her rich brown dapple, and she too has gold eye-liner.... 

Though if it is gold you want, then it's this little bird you want to watch.  Unlike the others the Goldfinch really only seems to like nyger seed, though in fact I see flocks of them in the fields at this time of year stripping thistles and umbelliferae of their seeds....  We have had families of these, and they always used to come to feed in pairs, but sadly, at the moment, there is only one.....

One of the most colourful birds, however, is the Starling.  When seen in their thousands at dusk, or when in flocks on farmland or strutting about on your lawn at a distance, they seem to be grey unattractive, but in fact they are shimmeringly bright with blues and speckles, the younger ones being lighter, sometimes almost fawn, the mature adults glistening with a sharp sheen.  They are acrobatic, too, and have a gift for mimicry which has even stretched to them imitating telephone rings to send humans back inside their houses!

Starlings are in decline, they say, and this is partly why the Big Garden Birdwatch is so important.  By inputting the received data, the experts in the world of ornithology can build up their knowledge of species - which are doing well, and which may need protection.  It may be great if you spot some rarity in your garden, but it is no problem if all you see is a tiny wren.  It may be spectacular to see a Red Kite circling overhead, or a Sparrow Hawk blasting past on a killing spree.  Woodpeckers and Jays are marvellous to see close up, and the glinting eyes of Magpies or the raucous voice of the Carrion Crow are things to marvel at, but this Big Garden Birdwatch is not about particulars like that; it is about mapping the commonplace, so that we can understand our everyday world a little better.  Woodpigeons may not be special, 

And I wouldn't mind putting this one in a pie, especially if he was the one who plundered my purple sprouting on my allotment, but he's welcome in our garden, pigeon toes and all!

My assistant bird watcher is particularly fond of him!

Though in fact, the birds just keep a respectful distance.....  We all get along just fine, and that, I think, is what is so wonderful about it all.....

If you go to the RSPB website https://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/ you will be able to register your interest, and eventually also upload your findings.

Last year over half a million people took part, noting some seven million birds.  The following is from the webpage:

Why take part?

Bird populations are a great indicator of the health of the countryside. That's why it's so important to take part in surveys like Big Garden Birdwatch to keep an eye on the ups and downs of the wildlife where we live.

All you need to do is spend an hour over the weekend of 24-25 January counting the birds in your garden. It's that simple!

The more people involved, the more we can learn. So, grab a cuppa and together we can all help to give nature a home.

Post Script:  January 24th
Big Garden Birdwatch 

No pigeons or doves in sight, and only a couple, respectively, of the sparrows and starlings, and no great tit.......  But a wren (unfortunately I missed getting a picture) and two goldfinches!  Yay!

Merrie England - Part Three

Spring Watch

April 7th.  The road is blocked with snow.  It is cold and dull and winter has not yet given way.  A week after Easter and we are looking for signs of rebirth, regeneration, new life.  I have to say that England does not look very Merrie....

It is April. Where is the warmth of Spring? What is this never-ending winter? We withdraw from the drifted snow that blocks our way and find another route. But everywhere seems lifeless and cold. Is the world coming to an end?

We find an Inn, check in for the night and take a walk, and examine the prospects of a world in a coma. Little by little signs of life appear. It's not so much that it is cold, though the unseasonal temperatures have kept life safe in dormancy, it is more that it is dull. Where is the fresh light and the blue sky that cheers so much after the drear of winter?

There is a chill in the land, and it is hard to believe that Easter, with its resurrective spirit, is a week behind us already. It is hard to believe that the clocks have changed. The valley seems dreich (to borrow the Scots' favourite word) and I just want to curl up and sleep.

But in fact the land is slowly coming back to life.  Trees are beginning to show their buds and flowers are managing to blossom.  

There is a lot going on.  Lambs, the symbol of many things, are stumbling into life.  I am reminded of an Easter in the Peloponnese years ago, taking a bus on Good Friday, and finding the luggage racks full of loosely wrapped carcasses of lambs, tears of blood trickling from their open necks.  The sacrifice of new born flesh being one of the most primitive rituals of man, but the taste of spit-roast meat with marjoram and fresh bread takes some beating.

But eggs are another potent symbol of rebirth and it is the bird song I notice next. Rarely heard from within the confines of a car, walking in an otherwise silent valley I find I am tuned in to the chattering and chirruping of tiny souls.  There is a proud Great Tit, boldly atop a bush, vigorously practising his characteristic two tone call. Then a happy refrain above me catches my ear, and I search the trees to catch a glimpse of a cock chaffinch, whistling in cheerful territorial claim, or to attract his mate.

Twitching about on the ground, rustling under leaves and pecking at the moss, a busy Dunnock catches my eye, foraging for insects and spiders to keep his strength up and perhaps even to feed his young.

Not far away twiggy nests still stand out in leafless trees, soon to be camouflaged by expected growth.  There is a lot going on, and the longer days help birds enormously as their need to feed their families increases.  The cold winter has been hard on them, and the extra weeks will have exhausted many, but there is no mistaking the sound of Spring in the songs of the survivors.

We move on.  It's not quite the joyous riot of Spring I had hoped for, especially having just got back from being screamed at by swifts on a beach in sunny Sicily, where the roadside verges are amok with flowers, but the evidence is there.  Slowly but surely we are emerging from our torpor.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.

The celebration of a family 21st birthday, another rite of passage, takes us on to Liverpool.  I was not expecting Spring to be much further advanced here amid the walls and the roads, but I am in for a surprise.  The warmth of Liverpool is not just in the ocean tides.  The spirit is welcoming, and generous, and despite the litter that blusters around the waste patches, and the houses that have seen many better days, there is a colourfulness about the ambience and about the people, and, like the birds, there is an excited business of preparation for new life apparent.

There is sufficient sun to bring people, and their pets, out onto the streets, out of the confines of the winter home and into the public world.

And people are busy with decoration, either painting or planting, outside their homes.

I find myself in a pub, joining in the craic with two gentlemen of substance.  Mr Sixteen-and-a-Half Stone is telling his elder, Mr Twenty Stone and Rising, about his diet.  "They weighed me, like, and I was 16 and a half stone, which for a man of my height is too much."  We nod.  "So I'm on a diet - I was eating six, seven pieces of bread....  And I'm swimmin', go to the gym - but not the heavy things, just the light exercise to start with."

"It's the food," interjects Mr Twenty, taking a draft from his pint.

"It's self-discipline," I add.

"An I got a bike.  Not goin' to use the car.  Want to lose some of this before the sun comes out!"  Mr Sixteen-and-a-Half wobbles his tummy.

"Walking is good,"  I suggest.

"It's the food," Mr Twenty repeats, quaffing another draft of ale.  This seems to cause some thought, just as Mr Fourteen Stone joins us.  

"I'm givin' up my diet," he offers, cheerily, ordering a pint.  "It didn't werk.  Potatoes, bread, butter, milk, sugar.  Jest didn't werk! I'm back on the fresh fruit and veg, me!"

We sail on, reinventing ourselves, reconstructing, resurrecting our images.  I come home to find a blackbird singing his heart out in my cherry tree, the buds just forming ready to foam in celebration of the light and warmth.  The fluting song, and the waving daffodils in the evening light seem good to me.  It has been a long winter, but the world keeps on turning.  For now, at least.

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world

And should you wish to hear the chaffinch (pictured above) - you won't see him here, but you can (just) hear him....