Bit of a heavy frost this morning so I served up a seed and fat ball breakfast for the local birds. I stocked up on bird food the day before yesterday. They only get the cheap stuff from Wilkos, I’m afraid, but it’s better than nothing given the mess they leave on the garden furniture. Still, it is very meditative watching birdies about their business. And this year I am going to set up a proper feeding station for them rather than hanging feeders on insubstantial branches and random hooks. So far I’ve seen blue tits, great tits, wrens, chaffinches, dunnocks, house sparrows, collared doves, a robin, a nuthatch and a naughty cockerel called Tootsie chancing his wing.
Bambino and Flora are also doing some attentive bird watching...
My favourite bird to see is the nuthatch. I’d never seen one in real life until we moved here. They are very streamlined and they scoot along the ground like they are ice-skating. I tried to get a decent photo but failed, so here is one from the interwebbly...
Sometimes we get jays, another bird I’d never seen in real life. And there’s the resident sparrowhawk, too, and the woodpeckers. Goldfinches make an appearance in Spring, but Autumn really belongs to the geese. There have been A LOT of geese this last week or two, flying so low across the fields you can hear their wings whistling. When I’m in the garden I always stop to watch the geese fly over.
I do love birds. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because they always look so busy and purposeful. Perhaps it is because they are clever and bold. Or that they bring life to the garden. Or a battlefield when you serve breakfast!
The one thing I’ve yet to see around us, which would bring unnecessarily wild excitement to my life, is an owl. We have heard one every now and then, at least we think we have. Could be a chicken practising its comedy voices. But we’ve yet to catch sight of one, despite strategic siting of the trail cam. Perhaps we could install an owl box - we have suitable trees.
I’ve never spotted an emu, either. But I’m not installing a box for one of those.
Bambino and Flora are also doing some attentive bird watching...
My favourite bird to see is the nuthatch. I’d never seen one in real life until we moved here. They are very streamlined and they scoot along the ground like they are ice-skating. I tried to get a decent photo but failed, so here is one from the interwebbly...
I do love birds. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because they always look so busy and purposeful. Perhaps it is because they are clever and bold. Or that they bring life to the garden. Or a battlefield when you serve breakfast!
The one thing I’ve yet to see around us, which would bring unnecessarily wild excitement to my life, is an owl. We have heard one every now and then, at least we think we have. Could be a chicken practising its comedy voices. But we’ve yet to catch sight of one, despite strategic siting of the trail cam. Perhaps we could install an owl box - we have suitable trees.
I’ve never spotted an emu, either. But I’m not installing a box for one of those.
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