Here’s another bird picture, by way of an apology for my lack of posting. I seem to have been super busy lately, and I’ll have loads of new plans to tell you about very soon.
In the meantime, my baby blackbird is growing up!
Here he is, fresh from the bird bath.
I’ve been trying to catch a snapshot of a pair of goldfinches for ages, but they never seem to sit still for long enough. This afternoon I established my position as bird paparazzo extraordinaire when I saw this little fellow on the fence, grabbed the camera, spun around and caught him just seconds before he flew away!
Now I feel less bad about failing to chop down the enormous great weed that’s been growing vigorously in one of our abandoned flower beds. The goldfinches obviously have a very important use for all the fluff that it’s producing.
Being based out in the garden, I’ve noticed that first thing in the morning is a really great time for birdwatching. The weather’s much cooler, especially at the moment, it’s nice and quiet, and there aren’t too many people around.
This young fellow was sitting on my fence for ages, happily singing away.
I’ve labelled him on Flickr as a young song thrush, because of his spots, but looking back through my pictures I’m thinking that it might actually be the fledgling blackbird.
What do you think? Are these guys both the same bird?
At the risk of sounding like a miserable old so-and-so, I am really not enjoying this heatwave! My Shed is like a sauna, and switching on the fan only serves to move the too-hot air around a bit.
I went outside to stand in a shady spot in the garden, and caught sight of these magpies on top of my neighbour’s conservatory. I couldn’t quite work out what they were doing, so I pulled out the zoom lens and had a look. It turned out that they were drinking the drips of water from a leaky overflow pipe. Clearly they’re not enjoying the heatwave very much either.
My plan for the rest of the afternoon? Refill the bird bath, and see whether anybody else needs a bit of a drink.
Red Kites are pretty common where I live. Thanks to their reintroduction into the area around the M40, I see them circling above my neighbourhood every day.
I’ve seen the kites being mobbed by gangs of crows before now – especially at the time of year when there are eggs and chicks for the crows to protect.
This morning I could hear an unusual bird song, so I went outside to have a look. I could see a single kite being mobbed by a group of much smaller birds. Definitely not crows.
It’s an overcast day and they were very high, so I wasn’t absolutely certain at first, but I think (mostly from looking up the sounds) that the kite was being mobbed by a gang of House Martins.
This was very exciting – firstly because it was a behaviour that I’d never seen before, and secondly because I didn’t know that we had any local house martins. Given that they’re frequently seen “near water and in the vicinity of woodland” I’m now rather surprised that I hadn’t seen them until today!
Apparently I now have some kind of Pavlovian reaction to the sound of tweeting. Every time I hear a bird, I grab the camera.
This one was snapped through the window, with the 200mm lens. (Hence the distance and the graininess.) Still cute though!
It’s a baby Great Tit. They fledged last week, in the pouring rain, but the parents are still bringing them food whenever they TWEET LIKE MANIACS. Which is quite a lot of the time, it has to be said.
The BBC programme Springwatch have an official Flickr group where you can upload your spring-related pictures. I’ve sent in some of my birds. There are some truly amazing photos there – all of which are only reinforcing my desire for a bigger lens!
Apparently it’s spider season.
One of the hazards of working in a wooden building at the bottom of the garden is that spiders like to share that building with you.
I’m not the biggest fan of spiders, so I was very glad to spot this magpie taking care of one for me!
Well, I asked for feedback on yesterday’s flower photos… and the feedback I received was “where are the birds?”.
So, by popular demand, I now have some photos of birds for sale on Etsy!
I had been planning to work on a new dress today, but a slight difficulty with an incredible shrinking lining swiftly followed by an unexpected power cut sadly put paid to those plans!
While the power was out, I did something which I’ve been putting off for ages, and tackled the garden. I spent a couple of hours mostly chopping down the plants which had sneaked into our garden over next door’s fence.
My reward for all this hard work?
A new friend.
(I still want need a bigger zoom lens though!)
