Rattling On...

Slowly but surely...

Dare we believe that Spring is actually arriving? Last week the pond finally thawed on Friday and immediately the frogspawn appeared, and I mean immediately. There was a frost the next two nights but it doesn't seem to have done any damage. There possibly isn't as much as the last few years, but who can blame the poor frogs? Plenty of time yet.

The annual cycle of the garden's own secret life has begun again. It's still a bit bleak out there but the sun does break through now and then and the days are hearteningly longer. I've made more efforts in the garden, much has bitten the dust, including the hellibores-ruined by the deep snow. Not gone forever, though, just this year. The rhubarb is just peeping through, the daffs looking promising, the garden furniture looking like it has stood out all winter...

Take your positions...

The jackdaws have started using the two trees at the front of the house as roosts, gathering before it starts to go dark. They are quiet in the evenings but rowdy in the mornings, messy as well.

There's lots of birdy activity happening now. The sparrows are constantly chattering in the hedges and chasing each other around. Courting I imagine. The blackbirds are squabbling over territory and most evenings you can see where they've taken up their Spring singing spots, usually near the top of a tree, as in the picture above. But, who else is there stealing top spot? Let's zoom in a bit...

A cheeky starling has pipped him to the post.

Lots of new nest boxes have just been put up at school and it'll be interesting to see if there are any takers in the first year. The two boxes outside my classroom window have been used the last two years and hopefully will be this year as well. the ones here at home have been checked out by the blue tits and fingers crossed they'll move in soon.

It's still cold and wet, but the birds don't mind. Spring is coming.

Worlds within worlds...

Me

Coco

Blackbird

Mouse

I have been watching the mice pinching the food I put out for the birds, under the laurel trees opposite the back door. They weave in and out of the stones in the little retaining wall and pop out to thieve a bit of seed or grated cheese, before nipping back to the hole I showed you previously. Occasionally they hang around for a brief moment

before streaking away. I tried to get a shot of one of them going into the pile of stones that was meant to be there temporarily while we wondered what to do with them. It has been there two years and the mice love it, so it's become a sort of installation. Anyway, my picture was spoiled by a photo-bomber...

Probably annoyed that someone was eating his grated cheese.

Drying out...

 

As I was feeding the cats this morning there was the unmistakable sound of baby blackbird from above the kitchen window. Fledging taking place! I think this one is maybe the last out of the nest as the parents have been feeding babies in the general melee which grows underneath this, and look at the size of it!

The hydrangea is quite high up and I'd been wondering how they coped with the descent...

Well, this one took it in stages and could fly well enough. It was very vocal and a bit miffed when mum and dad didn't appear straight away.

Thanks to everyone for the commiserations over the water damage. After the drying out period it's mainly just ugly staining and a mess in the bathroom tiling department. We should be able to do all the repairs ourselves, it's just a bugger that the bathroom was new last year and some of the tiles were broken. Isn't it funny how repairing something takes so much longer than the original work? I think it's just a good job I found the mess when I did and hadn't gone off for the day to leave it seeping.

All is quiet in the garden at the moment, baby has made it to the ground somewhere and taken cover. That just leaves the nest by the back door, the second one in that place this year. There are babies in there as I hear them when the parents go into the depths of the honeysuckle, but they are very well hidden. Crow continues to live in the front laurel...

It's all ere and a gottle of geer...

The birds like it when I've been out doing a bit of weeding or cutting the lawn, it makes their foraging a little easier. In this case I was weeding, and tying up roses that have been blown all over the place.

This one was even singing with his enormous mouthful of various titbits for the babies back in the nest. The one that's under the bathroom window in the climbing hydrangea. The one that desperately needs cutting back before I have to do it by abseiling off the roof to get to the top bits.

It almost didn't rain yesterday, there was a bit of drizzle and a cold North wind. But that counts as a fine day at the moment. A colleague blithley told me we are going to get three months' worth of rain in the next three days, then it would be 'great' for the rest of the summer. I'll keep you posted on that...

Under the gooseberry bush...

The baby blackbirds still haven't gone very far, though the parents have pretty much stopped feeding them now. There were two together this morning, on the front lawn. They all go back to the laurel in the back at the end of the day.

Laurel seems to be the roost of choice for the blackbirds and I suspect it gets crowded in there of an evening!

It rained all day again today. Despite the weathermen promising a fine, dry and warmer day. I'm not sure I'd describe 9^oC as warm, and with the rain pounding everywhere it couldn't be described as fine.

It feels like summer has been and gone, even though we haven't had midsummer's day yet. I hemmed some linen trousers this afternoon, all the while wondering if it were actually worth it. Fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is the last day of the washed-out half term holiday. I've done some reading, cleaned out a couple of cupboards and ebayed about a third of my yarn stash. But hardly been outside due to the weather, disappointing. You can bet we'll walk into school and the sun will come out!!

The gooseberries are about the ony fruit that looks like having any issue this year. Not my favourite, but beggars and all that...

Blackbird diaries...

Can you see him?

What about now?

Any clearer?

There's a definite pattern to blackbird daily life, focused around food I suspect. I'm not sure whether this is natural or influenced a little bit by me.

I feed them twice a day, early morning and when I get home from work. They are quite bare-faced when it comes to asking for food by sitting on the fence or in the tree and making a soft noise until I oblige. I can recognise the babies' calls now, and can sneakily imitate them, which means they don't tend to scarper when I'm around.

I usually feed them under the laurel and, like here, under the fruit bushes. It's the type of place they'd choose naturally and it gives good cover. I always check the coast is clear of jackdaws and moggies. Crow wasn't far away when I was taking these pictures- there seems to be a truce at the moment. Maybe now the babies can fly quite well (better than him) he's less of a threat.

The parents still feed the chicks, but they also feed off the floor by themselves. Dried mealworms and the odd bit of cheese. The sparrows also appear and they all seem to get on. I change the little bowl of water every day, it's very popular and the sparrows grab a crafty bath which gets mud in it.

From what I can tell, all four fledglings are still around. This is great compared to other years, when sometimes none have survived. The only thing suffering for now is the front garden...

The hedge needs attention and the grass is wild. But, but... I don't want to upset the blackbird applecart and potentially scare the babies into danger. It won't be long before they won't give a whatsit about what I do in there. For now, I'm making them a priority. Maybe a quick trim at the weekend with some low-tech implements...

Death by chocolate...

...following slow and excruciating torture, also by chocolate.

I promised one of the boys I work with a chocolate fudge cake, his favourite. He'd better be in the chocolatey groove today!

In other news: as far as I can tell all the blackbird chicks are fine and the parents are refurbing the nest ready for the next brood.

Crow is also fine, poor little man. As two of the fledglings are currently in his laurel tree, he gets nagged until he loeaves each morning. Only returning to roost in the evening. When the adult blackbirds leave him alone. I wish they'd let him be during daylight hours but I suppose it's Nature and they're just protecting their young. At night the truce is odd but a relief from the cacking noise they bombard him with if he tries to come 'home'.

I am pondering Jubilee cake ideas. Chocolate will not feature, I'm sick of the smell of it...

Today's the day...

Turns out there were four in there and a little while ago I saw one of them bobbing past the back door. The others seem a little undecided.

Poor old Crow in the front garden is getting an ear bashing from the male as the baby must have gone in that direction. He hasn't bothered them up until now so hopefully they'll leave him in peace later on.

I've put some music on quite loud as I have to be honest and say that the birds are driving me bonkers at the monent. The noise from them all is incredible. A magpie was around yesterday and six blackbirds and assorted sparrows came to scare it off and they all flew after it over the road. I admire them so much.

I'm going to try not to pay too much attention to the babies. I can't take the stress. That's all the nests fledged now... and another is being built in the climbing hydrangea under the bathroom window.

There's definitely been success. A few days ago there was a lot of rustling in the laurel and a very funny noise coming from it. It was a baby blackbird trying to get fed by a different set of parents (the ones of these fledglings), it was just following them around and sort of cackling at them. It's a female and has new feathers coming through so fully able to care for herself!

There seem to be two...

As this is the female who is very used to me I don't feel too worried about poking the camera into the bushes to get a look at what's going on. This is at least the third year she's appeared on the blog.

I thought the nest opposite the back door had been abandoned, but at the weekend I noticed a male going in there with food! That makes four nests in the garden and two are only about twenty feet apart.

The other one that's easy to get to I shan't try to look in as I don't 'know' the birds, though the female is fine with me peering at her every day.

I don't like this time of year, very stressful altogether. Though logically I don't see how four nests' worth of chicks in one garden could really be sustainable if I didn't feed them all year round.

But there's the dilemma... if I stopped the blackbirds possibly wouldn't survive, and if I keep doing it I'll be over-run one day! At least they all seem to get on. For the moment...

Back after lunch to say...Whoops...

...and then there were three!!

Gratuitous...

Have you noticed that just because it's raining Down South we all have to hear about it? It isn't on the news that us Northerners have had to suffer torrential rain for weeks and weeks and weeks...

Well, breaking news, it hasn't rained for two days here. Two days, where are the news crews and cameras? Why aren't they stationed on the corner of the streets filming people strolling about in the only just above freezing temperatures, positively basking in their good fortune?

Oh, sorry, they're still looking at some water falling from the sky Darn Sarth.

I am, of course, being facetious. But come on, you can't moan about a drought then moan that it's raining. It rained more here in April than it has for 140 years. That's a lot of rain. And do we moan? Yes we do. But we don't get to moan on the national news. They only like us when it snows, which it does every year.

Anyway, while taking today's gratitous sunny photos I spotted another blackbird's nest. That makes three in the back garden altogether. Is that a record? They all seem to get on alright with each other and take turns in the pond, bathing.

These are the two I haven't shown before. The first is in honeysuckle on the party fence and the second is in the wood shed thingy, which is a canny place to build as it has a roof!

Off out today. To enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, which it isn't forecast to do. Doom and gloom, doooooom and glooooom...

Blackbird diaries...

This is the female blackbird who waits for food in the front garden every morning. She and her mate had been making a nest in the laurel hedge outside the back door, but all the snow the other week seems to have put them off, maybe the nest got knocked down.

Instead they have made another in the honeysuckle, where they built one the year before last.

They have been very inventive and added some dried hydrangea flowers which you can see in the above picture. As the nest is deep in the bush it's quite dark in there so the pictures are on the grainy side. Hopefully when the weather improves (please...) and there's some sunshine I should be able to get better views.

She can be seen in there occasionally giving it a test run...

I don't think I'll be able to get pictures of any eggs later on, as it's quite high up. But then I've said that before and still managed. As she is so used to me there's no danger of me frightening her away.

I love and hate this time of year in equal measure. I love watching what the birds are up to and hate all the worry when the chicks fledge. The jackdaws mobbed and killed a pigeon the other day. Next door's dog was trying to catch the spiralling feathers, snapping away at them.

There's also a nasty cat appeared. It tries to catch my mice in the back garden. I shoo it away. Pointless as that is.

Speaking of mice, I was driving to work the other morning and had to stop the car in the middle of the road as a tiny field mouse was just crossing. I wonder where he was off to?

This is the Mister of the pair, sitting on the front garden hedge, keeping an eye on his manor.

Blackbird Diaries...

The blackbirds are nesting opposite the kitchen door, in the laurel tree, roughly the same place as last year.

Mrs is very busy...

They like to eat dried fruit, I put it on top of the compost bin which is their preferred spot. It's right in the end of the laurel so they don't have far to go for breakfast. If I forget to put the food out they chatter at me and flap about.

This is one of the two pairs who nest in the back garden, I haven't seen if the others have started a nest anywhere yet. They are all very friendly, but yesterday when I was getting too close to the laurel this female divebombed me and I could feel the draft from her wings on my face. I am duly warned. It's okay to feed her, it's okay for her to pose for me not a foot away sometimes...  but the house is private!

Blackbird diaries...

Or... Narcissus takes the plunge.

He starts off by staring for ages into the water from the stones at the side of the pond. Then he sits in up to his tummy, sort of floating. The tail gets a genteel rinse... then he goes for it hell for leather. At which point you'd be forgiven for thinking he was drowning, which I did the first time, but he just loves the water this one. Then its a quick scratch and fluff and out onto the stones to dry off a little.

This is a juvenile male, one of last year's babies, which you can tell because he'sn ot quite fully black yet and his beak hasn't turned yellow. He's a bit of a ladies' man, though, and gets into quite a few spats with some other males in the garden. There were seven blackbirds in the back the other day. Three go around together and I think they may be the three from last year's nest, a couple are what I presume to be their parents (none of them fight) and a few invaders intent on turf wars.

There's quite a lot of this in the undergrowth...

... where the coy ladies play hard to get. But frankly if it came to callow youth or this boy...

... there'd be no competition.

Blackbird diaries...

 I heard a blackbird singing in the trees outside work just as it was going dark yesterday. I have missed them.

The female in the pictures is one of the garden regulars, she pip-pips at me for food and will come very close. Unfortunately one of the males has been killed by a cat that moved in two doors away... 

The pond is always busy with all manner of birds drinking and bathing and I waste many a minute just watching them from the kitchen window, which has the best view and has been cleaned so I get better pictures. (Remember the veil of filth... no longer with us after the discovery of a lovely window cleaner who doesn't use ladders, but has one of those extending brush contraptions.)

The pond has also developed a nasty case of blanket weed, most annoying and as I never had it before the re-lining was done I don't know where it came from. None of the plants are new or anything like that. I've heard that barley straw can get rid of it but I don't know if that's an urban myth. Any suggestions?