COTONEASTER CATWALK

BACK TO THE FLOOD

PRUNING

BLACKBIRD'S DREAM

WINGS FROM SILENCE

Leucistic Blackbird scuttleflusters 

Slantwise into hidey hedge

Wondering unhumble at its own

Soul-sweet difference

Sevenly splendid Ladybird

Beacons its unhidden

Abacus wings from silence

As suddenly as Spring

Both are beauty

Glory enfolds them both

A BLACKBIRD IN THE HAND

One of the male Blackbirds (Turdus merula) regularly hops inside the conservatory to check I haven't dropped any mealworms on the carpet. I usually have and he knows this. Sometimes he even leaves me a little "present" as a thankyou!

This week he got a bit more adventurous. Once inside, while I was in the kitchen with the door closed between us, he became so entranced by the view of the outside from inside, he forgot how to get back to ordinary life through the wide open back door.

After capturing his extraordinary adventure on camera, I managed to calm him down after his sporadic attempts to fly back through the picture windows to the garden beyond. I gently wrapped him in a handy pillowcase to stop him flapping his wings or panicking and carried him out to his more familiar place on the patio. He flew off gratefully.

He'll be dining out on that story for years! The other Blackbirds will be so envious!

Later that day, I was outside dead-heading the chives when I noticed there was only one Blackbird bold enough to come close to me to eat the mealworms I always scatter for my garden friends.

Guess who? I think he's read the memo that there are some humans who only want the very best for you and that some glass cages have invisible hidden keys and featherless janitors who set you free to feel again the sunshine on your wings.

SCRUFFY THE BLACKBIRD - RUN RAGGED!

Scruffy the Blackbird, run ragged!

We all have those days.

Boss is on your case.

Kids need feeding.

House looks like a tip.

Can barely snatch a moment to do the supermarket run.

Tempers fray.

No time to breathe.

Let alone put a comb through your hair.

It's that time of year again for the birds!

Scruffy the Blackbird's run ragged. Literally.
Feathers mussed up in a mad mohican. 
Dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards style.
Nobody notices.
Nobody gives a flying feather!

Everybody's about their own business, grabbing all available food for their own families.
If Scruffy's lucky, he'll get a moment between foraging trips to have a bite himself.

By Summer, I won't even recognise Scruffy.

Maybe I should have given him a better name.

All those extra mealworms will have to be my apology, for now!

Scruffy the Blackbird rests for a second in the Lilac while Mrs S does her shift gathering baby food

BIRDBATH ETIQUETTE

House Sparrow: *drums toes*

Blackbird: Splish, splash, I was taking a bath!

House Sparrow: *tries to look away as if he's not that bothered*

Blackbird: I'm forever blowing bubbles...

House Sparrow: Mate! Have a little word with yourself! You're holding up the bathroom queue!

Blackbird: You all right over there, Spadge?

House Sparrow: Wash under your armpits, then scarper, won't you?

Blackbird: Hang on! I've lost the soap!

House Sparrow: Whatever! I'll try the next garden!

Busy birds (and a very cheeky grey squirrel!)

Birds are full of the joys of spring now. Pairing up, gathering nesting material, shouting about how they are the best specimen on show! 

This morning a Goldfinch ventured closer than usual to the house. They often feed at a distance on the niger seeds in a hanging feeder under the fruit tree. Today, four of them were chasing each other up and down, feeding on the seeds of the lilac, flying up to the top of the aspen and sycamores, whizzing through willow and ash, twittering and giggling together. The one seen here came up as far as the pergola to enjoy the sunflower hearts!


Meanwhile, one of my cheeky grey squirrels came to try its luck with the different foods on offer. Here you can see it tucking into to the mixed seeds in a hanging feeder.


The starlings in these photos are enjoying the hopper newly topped up with suet and insect pellets.


House sparrows, both male and female, and a male blackbird can also be seen in these snaps, noisily helping themselves to all they need to be in optimum breeding condition.


I didn't manage to snap the collared dove this morning, but she was busy collecting thin twigs for her nest in a nearby conifer hedge. I'll try again another day.


Here's today's snaps, taken with a Nikon Coolpix 3700 3.2 mega pixel resolution 3x optical zoom-Nikkor lens, shooting through a Barr & Stroud Sahara 15-45 x 60 spotting scope on tripod:

Feathers in the sun

Laid low for a fortnight with a virus (on top of my usual M.E. variety of viral symptoms-greedy!), I'm so grateful to God for the silver lining he provides if we look at every cloud with him! Being so ill, I've had lots of opportunity to micro-watch at close quarters the spring unfolding and bursting into new life all around.


 The trees are fat with blossoms and leaves are now a million shades of green. The young birds are all beginning to venture out of the snug shelter of the their nests to explore the big beautiful world and to learn how to fend for themselves. My photo above shows a young female blackbird, nicknamed Baggy, to identify her, as she's the chick of Ben (not Bill, geddit?) and Aggie (my most aggressive female visitor). Baggy takes after her mum in looks and temperament. This morning they had quite a fight, trying to define where they fit in the bigger picture! Here, in a calmer moment, Baggy is learning how refreshing an apple quarter can be in the hot May sunshine! 


Nearby, baby starlings were still trying to convince their parents they needed to be fed. One Starling youngster spent all morning screeching petulantly with open beak to get its parent to do the honours. When all the adults got wise and flew off, he slowly tried a few tentative pecks at the scattered suet, grain and dried mealworms on offer, and found he could actually survive now on his own. Magical moments in God's plan! Once he'd also worked out that there was more dignity in landing on the clothes post than tightroping along the washing line, there was no stopping him.


When the sun was at its hottest a few days ago, several of the blackbirds indulged in that peculiar pursuit, "sunning", where the bird, usually so alert, switches off to everything but the luxury of "sitting down" in a sunny spot, staring at the sun blissfully blankly, beak open, wings and tail feathers spread. Science tells us this is probably to stimulate the preen glad at the base of the tail, which makes sense, as the bird eventually goes on to preen itself after sunning. During the sunbathing, the blackbirds seemed in a total trance, and hardly stirred at human approach, transfixed by the still small inner voice, instinctively obedient to their own deepest needs and necessities for the life for which they were graciously created.


 We have so much to learn, and so much to delight in on the way! Enjoy this precious planet and God bless you as you hold its fragile magnificence close to your heart!

Sparrowhawks have yellow feet

Sparrowhawks have yellow feet,
The Woodpigeon’s are pink,
And one can take the other down
Quicker than it can think.
The Hawk sat under my apple tree,
Staining the white snow red,
Spreading a grey down carpet
Where her hungry beak had fed.

The Blackbird’s bill is golden,
The Dunnock's legs are red;
Their colour coded miracles
Fill winter’s empty head
With stab and thrill and beat- boxing
With dip and dodge and dance,
With scolding or with shyness,
And the seizure of each chance.

The Fieldfare, foreign-feathered,
Comes to peck the apple core,
While the Goldcrest and the Bullfinch
Show the shades that God once saw
When He finished the creation,
And stood back, enjoying all
Just the way that He’d intended
From the colour to the call.

He didn’t forget the sparrow,
Totting up its plumage count,
And remarking how the chocolate
And the coffee barbs stood out;
How the chirrup and the chatter
Sang a twitter feed of worth
From the vacuum close of chaos
To the spark that lit the earth.

JB 12th Jan 2010