A male Greenfinch has been sing out side most of this morning. Another male possibly the same bird has been displaying to females.
Wildlife Obsevations Feb 13th
hello, think you're ahead of yourself again LOL
Been clearing out dormouse boxes. A few had fresh strands of moss in and we were scolded the bluetits who were staking their claim
Dog's mercury and bluebells were pushing through fresh green shoots and the first female red flowers are showing on the hazel.
LOL it's because we work a day ahead and always think about tomorrow
Well now it is the 13th and some welcome sun after days of overcast murky skies and rain.
The great tits and coal tits are shouting their heads off, but it's turning colder again brrrrrrr
saw the resident pair of Great Tits - Chickadees to those in the US - checking out nest boxes earlier today.
We had a blackbird 'chattering 'quarrelsomely this morning it wasn't even light, and he went on for ages...and ages...and ages... I normally enjoy bird song, but he was starting to get on my nerves.He finally decided to shut up about 6.30a.m Either that, or someone threw sonmething at him!!
There was a buble bee this morning buzzing around looking for nectar.The lungwort is well inflower ,as are a couple of my euphorbias, others a bit behind.
The fish were swimming up top, so I fed them wheatgerm sticks,they gobbled it up.I could hear a lot of croaking from next doors pond, but nothing in mine so far.Last yaer it was full of frog and toad spawn,but then it all disappeared,
Lots of the bulbs are racing up through the soil now, won't be long before they're in flower.I've also noticed, checking all my plants in pots fromlast years sowings, are starting to sprout leaves, especially the clematis. I hadn't got around to cutting down my clematis on my potager arches, and when I went up there ,they'd all shot up from higher up on the stems, so I debated wether to cut them down or leave them,but I cut them down anyway, will top them with mulch and feed this weekend.
The seeds in my propogator are coming up thick and fast now, have already moved one lot out, to make room for the next.Think I might invest in a second one.
i put a new feeder up last weekend with niger seed in, and since it's been up, I've not seen a single finch!!ungrateful lot :-)
Hundreds of noisy fieldfares, waxwings, great tits, and some other birds have been flying from tree to tree around our area for over a week. They keep a horrible noise, especially fieldfares.. and waxwings too, when a tree is full of them. And I'm not just speaking of 200 birds, there might even be over a thousand of them all. Just think the noise. They've been enjoying the rowan berries, and there are still plenty of them left in the trees.
you still have Rowans left at this time of year! tell them to hurry and eat them because we have been waiting patiently for the waxwings to arrive.
Sue, I wouldnt feed your fish just yet.
Yep, they are very common here, so we have lots of them..
I hope the waxwings still stay here and clean the rowans, I don't want to see any berries in them in the Spring :}
have I done a boo boo then Mark? I thought I was doing them a favour? there's ice on the pond this morning,so much for me bragging last summer that we hardly ever had frost here,we've had quite a few frosts this year!!...
Trouble is it's a bit tricky this time of year sue. Their metabolic rate is so slow with the low temperatures that they can't digest stuff. Hopefully they'll be fine, but don't feed more until the weather really warms up.
Great to hear you've got a niger feeder as well. Have faith - if you've seen goldfinches in your garden before they'll find the feeder sooner or later. They took six weeks to find mine, but now are there every day :)
I'd like some of your waxwings please Evert - shoo them this way, sounds as if you have plenty to spare ;)
Hey, you already have Spring there, and flowers blooming, can't we have at least the birds ;) We have still a +-month to wait before first snowdrops will bloom.
I knew it was chilly, but didn't realise quite how chilly until I took a walk down the side drive. Our upstairs bathroom has obviously sprung a leak in the overflow,and now we have nice icicles on my clematis, not had icicles here in yonks.Going to stoke up the fire now, and settlr down in front of it to read seed catalogues, just in case I missed anything first time round!! :-)
thought I'd pop this pic of the cats enjoying the fire,it was lovely and cosy, settled down with hot chocolate and seed catalogues!
Cats are correct in a wildlife thread - they are the only "domestic" that chose to come and live with man - all the other domestic animals (eg dogs, cows, horses, sheep, hens, etc) had to be domesticated. Because of this (and their refusal to do what they don't want to) they are legally classed as wild animals.
I like wild animals and have a 15-year old one who stays inthe warm this weather - she'd love Suone's rug in front of the fire.
Talking of wild cats, my DD in Panama(she's doing research there) heard a noise outside one evening, looked out and a civet streaked past; this is the first one she's seen as they are very shy of humans. She was delighted! She says it was a bit bigger than a lynx and is the top predator on the island (a nature reserve). I shouldn't think the research centre's cats were too pleased.