Bird activity at my feeders has been high through the past week and I’ve had my usual visitors to the garden including the feral pigeons.
Another new mainly white pigeon has been coming some days amongst the original group. The pair of crows are still swooping down in the morning for special scraps of food and also having another look around in the garden in the middle of the day and late in the afternoon. I do enjoy watching them strutting about on the lawn.
Yesterday afternoon it became blustery and the birds were finding landing conditions quite difficult and one of the crows who arrived late afternoon, was making a special manoeuvre in the wind to try and land safely in the wild cherry tree, which of course was swinging about anyway. They know what they are doing and human pilots have learnt their skills. At least one magpie has been coming to join the crows looking for the special treats.
Bathing in the bird bath has been popular again this week with the starlings getting into a group of perhaps three or four in the deepest saucer and having a good splash. I enjoy their antics and earlier in the week, three of them were in one of the saucers and another was in the shallow one next to it trying to have a bath. It looked across as much to say, ‘They’ve got more water’ and soon hopped into the other saucer to enjoy a lovely splash around. The starlings have also been consuming the meal worms with gusto although they sometimes have competition from the magpie or a jackdaw, who might come over and land in the feeder tray to try to take some of the mealworms. I think the feral pigeons and the starlings generally get on pretty well together if they’re both feeding at the same time.
I’ve not seen so much of the blue tits and great tits in the last week, but I have seen at least a couple of robins and I’m still making sure that they have some food put out late for them. The sparrows are hopping about and I think the route they’re taking in the garden from my holly bush outside an upstairs window, onto the low fence between my next door neighbour’s garden and my garden, means that they are probably starting to take nesting materials into the neighbour’s roof space.
The squirrels have been busy this week burying nuts again all over the place and consuming quite a few straight from the feeder and my picture this week shows one of the squirrels on a branch perch which has been attached to the dead tree in my garden, and I’ve mentioned that before as my main feeding station by the bird table.
There are certainly more signs of spring in the garden at the moment with crocuses joining the snowdrops and even a few daffodils now in flower. I wonder how the plants will do in the next day or two as we have another storm about to hit on Friday. I think landing conditions will be even more tricky for the birds.
Written by Margaret Emerson
