My garden is largely left to itself so that the creatures that can avoid being caught by my cats (mostly mice and frogs) can thrive there. But I hadn't seen my robin redbreast for months, and the one lonely grey wagtail I'd seen a few times after last year's Big Garden Bird Watch (oh yes) was conspicuous by its absence.
So I bought a new bird feeding station to augment the feeders I have hanging from my washing line (so much prettier than washing, and the washing looks amazing covered in bird droppings) which mostly have very fat squirrels dangling from them. You all know what the squirrels look like, because back in Victorian times we introduced them over here as an ornamental addition to our gardens and a survival challenge to our own red squirrels. But I'd be interested to see if our birds are familiar. Just because they might have the same names, doesn't mean our respective species look the same.
Anyway, the robin reappeared approximately 5 minutes after I put up the new feeder, complete with dedicated robin feeding platform with mealworms and insects (NOT live, freeze-dried). It took the wagtail a further day to reappear. These are the two most exciting things that have happened to me for weeks. Saddo.
The great tit. Their call sounds like a squeeky bicycle pump.
A plain ordinary house sparrow - clever people, we've pushed this little love nearer to extinction, and no-one knows how.
The starling, with its beautiful irridescent plumage, is making a comeback to its former troublesome levels at which they could kill off a tree with their droppings because they flock to a roost. They are loud, chattery and argumentative, too. Gotta love 'em.
The grey wagtail scurries along, wagging its tail up and down. Strangely, there's a yellow wagtail as well, but despite appearances, this isn't it.
7 comments:
There is only a tit joke in the event that you are trying to maNIPulate your readers.
The only bird we see here is the starling. Here, they are the equivilent of the grey squirrel there. An agressive non-native bird, they have pushed out and are threatening our native species. But I do love their irridescence. How odd that they have to make a comeback there.
We have sparrows here but they don't quite look like yours.
We have titmouses (titmice?) but they are rarely seen in the city or the suburbs, but I will check with my brother o'er Christmas. He has an intense feeder set-up.
And I've never heard of nor seen a yellow wagtail.
I will bet your robin is the same as ours. They are our harbinger of spring though some stay and wheather the winter.
Our comeback king is the now all to common Canadian Goose. The combination of the ban on DDT, decrease in hunting, and urban sanctuaries free of predators have brought them back from the brink into a overpopulation explosion. They have discovered our city and office parks and now, knowing a good thing when the see it, don't even bother to migrate. Many a parkway and golfcourse is now ever so over "fertilized" by their presence. I saw at least a thousand of them on my surburban trek yesterday. Which is why many here now welcome back the coyote into suburban and even some urban spaces.
I forgot to ask, are these your photos? They're quite marvelous.
And the photo almost leads me want to repect the starling. Wasn't there a Monty Python routine mimicing educational files that flashed a photo with a voice over; "the starling"?
"files", should be "films".
Lovely photos, Val. I see a friendly hand in one of those pics. Yours? We know how you love photos of hands (well, Vincent D'Onofrio's, anyway).
No, sadly, the pictures are from Google.
The Canada goose is very prolific over here too, but not through migration. like the suqirrel they were brought over. The droppings are - er - generous, aren't they?
Our robins are the staple of Christmas card makers, as they are year-round residents.
The first thing I noticed on Canadian soil last year was how similar their sparrowsa re to ours. Then there were the foxes, deer, magpies, crows and herons. COuldn't believe the similarities.
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