Birds in the garden Part 2.

Have you ever seen a pair of happier blackbirds?

I love the expression on their faces; pure contentment!

The cat looks quite old has he been round a long time? We fed one who had been living under a hut in the garden for years. He never became tame, although he did use a special new cat house I made for him when we moved the hut.

My little hen likes cat food too, she comes into the kitchen to raid the cat's dish if I leave the door open. I sometimes put the remains of the cat's dinner out for the hedgehogs at night if Blossom decides she doesn't want it.

You have lots of baby birds around. I've only seen a couple of baby blackbirds so far. The Magpie is raiding every nest it spots and I keep rushing out to scare it out of the garden. The neighbours must think I'm mad.

We've had a Mistle thrush in the garden several times this week which is very unusual. It has been attracted by the Mahonia berries. The blackbirds are also feasting on them. I've seen them eating the ivy berries too. I can't imagine what they must taste like and don't fancy trying one. The mahonia berries look quite tasty though.

The blackbirds have been enjoying themselves this week delving about in the mulch I put round the newly transplanted onions and I've had to replant half of them this afternoon. They must be having a difficult time finding food for their young, although it is raining heavily at the moment so should be easier for them.

Don't you just love those blackbirds when they scratch about, mine only scratch off leaves when they are still on the garden. Compsot is great stuff but it has worms which attract the moles too! We have had light showers yesterday and more today, tonight it started again, looks like the plants won't shrivel up after all. The birds were out in the rain, I saw a mistle thrush grab a snail, I guess it's been hard on the snails too!

Straypuss must have been around for well over 2 years, how time goes. He was very nervous, very hungry and a stick on legs. It didn't take long for me to be able to stroke him although it took a long time before he would allow me to touch him unless he was getting food. He has often needed strokes so he could eat, a top cat permission ritual. He's been is some battles and survived but I think he hasn't many lives left.

After the grass had been mowed this afternoon a pair of thrushes landed, one of them I think the male had it's head tilted like the black bird, listening. I wondered if the mowing might normally bring worms to the surface, as rain does, and they have learned this. When they both took off another one went from behind a bed, must have been their young.

Mr and Mrs

Baby?

Today I have been pruning the climbers at the front of my house, which is in a row. As my neighbours are not plant-minded: 'plants are only useful in so far one can eat them', each year I have a big job to discipline my two vigorous climbers; a Wistera sinensis and a Parthenocissus tricuspidata that have ambitions to conquer the whole street if only allowed.
That's why I could take this picture of the two baby wood-pigeons in their nest from the window on the upper floor of the house. For Resin; they are the babies of Columba palumbus. They are loyal guests and make nests every year in there. Also Blackbirds and the little Turkish turtles appreciate my jungle facade, in autumn the starlings feast on the berries of the Parthenocissus.

It seems strange to have wood pidgeons nesting on the front of a house, and in a city. They have often nested in my conker tree but the nest or babies seemed to get blown out so they now go across the road to the thicker hedge. There is a small tree heavily covered in ivy at the side of the drive where they looked to have nested last year.

Those babies look like they could topple off, no room for mother on there. It's great that you provide places for these birds, they don't look very worried!

Wallaby, the blue rain is very thick, with strong branches, its 16 years old. I only prune it on the sides where it invades the neighbours facades. In the winter I also prune the branches which are sticking out too much towards the street side (like sometimes more than 2 meters) but never very short.
Its full of old nests from past years and I leave them in there. In wintertime they are very visible.
When I took the picture I kind of imitated the sound of the wood pigeon, that's probably why they don't look frightened.

This is mom (or dad ?), I don't know how to find out: they look exactly the same, visiting the little upstairs terrace on the backside of the house a couple of days ago before the weather made a turn.

mom and dad landing

Close-up of mom or dad.

I thought the baby wood pigeon at the back looked as if it was saying "If I keep very still they will get the big fat one at the front first!"

Wonderful shots bonitin, you were lucky to get mom and dad both landing together.
The babies do look amused, their parents must have warned them about a human who tries to make pidgeon calls!

There is an imprint on a back upstairs window of what looks like a wood pidgeon with outspread wings and fanned tail, with visible breast feathers and wing and tail feathers. It must have run into it and lived, it left a whitish waxy looking imprint, I've never seen that before.

The blackbirds are now asking for baby food donations three times a day, I was going to the greenhouse when the male came behind me and looked at my partner who was just outside the door, it went to within a couple of feet of him. I got a call to go back and feed the birds first!

They took it in turns to get the food and take it to the baby, while one was feeding it the other was getting food, they seem to only have the one. I guess they have to do it as quickly as possible to get all the food, another blackbird came on the scene and quickly got shooed away.

I managed a shot of the female feeding the baby but only got it from behind, it looks to have food on top of it's head. They trust me even when the baby is there, I'll be asked to babysit next!

Baby came closer to the food source, sitting under the boysenberry. See the streak with a beak!

It was a bit dark under there but I lightened the shot, cute baby!

Your Blackbirds are tame. The ones here are quite nervous - probably because of the marauding Magpie. They are keeping their young well out of sight for a couple of weeks after leaving the nest. I knew they were feeding some, but they have brought one to the feeders today. It is almost as big as the parents, but still very babyish. It is going round looking for food and pretending to be grown up and then Mum and Dad come and stuff worms down its beak. I've also seen a couple of tiny tufty little house sparrows getting confused as they couldn't get enough altitude to fly over the fence and ended up squeezing through rather small mesh chicken wire.

I'm hoping to see some young Bullfinches as they are around every day now, so should be breeding nearby.

I dutifly fed the blackirds this morning, it didn't take long for them all to appear. Mr & Mrs with two babies following came running down the garden path. Mrs had already got to the food with Mr landing on the back of the seat, babies hanging back.

I only saw one yesterday but the other might have been one I saw, they fed one in the strawberry patch at first, then it went further up the garden. I saw a bird coming from the back thinking it was the same, it went down to get fed so the first one may then have gone in hiding.

Both parents started to do the dinner run

But baby #1 decided to make it easy for them

Hard to get a shot of the food actually going in the mouth, I had plenty of opportunities so just kept snapping and got this with the excitable wing flap. I didn't have the camera on full zoom as I had lengthened it to get the babies in down the path and forgot until it was nearly over.

Bingo!

Just about full, this one then went off with mom while dad had to go back and forth over the fence to feed #2.

Pat, this baby looks bigger than the parents with it's fluffed feathers!

I think they have ideas of having another brood, the male flew off from near the greenhouse when I went over. I had my camera with me, this female was sitting behind the bikeshed (greenhouse) looking pretty and fluffing her feathers, twitching her tail, flapping her wings. Well I don't think she was doing it for me!

In a flutter.....

All fluffed up and nowhere to go

Mr Robin had to put in an appearance to assert his dominancy.

A pair of Doves were sat on the pergola preening and fluffing themselves, while a Thrush made repeat journeys to the hanging baskets which had live fuchsias in leaf in them until the hard mid February frost. I have been wanting to take them down and clean them up as weeds are growing fast, and to see if the fuchsias are growing again but haven't got around to that small job with so may other jobs looming.

The Doves really couldn't understand why the Thrush kept scratching about there, when it could be sunning itself. I wasn't sure either, but convinced myself it must be getting worms in the compost which would have come to the surface with the rain, assuming they eat worms. It took me some time to realize it was more likely the coconut fibres it was getting from behind the plastic lining to make another nest. It's baby is getting well feathered now, yesterday it stood on top of the tall trellis and tried a little yodel, it doesn't seem frightened either so next year it might be a friendly food forager too.

I couldn't stop the camera reflecting in the window, the Thrush to the right on back basket.

Gob full of fibres?

The thrush must have the same idea as the Magpies who were taking chunks of my doormat - good nesting material.

The young blackbird is growing fast with all that food.

I've had more newly fledged birds coming to the feeders today, Greenfinch, the ginger blackbird, House sparrows and a very bold baby Siskin who was challenging a Starling on the feeder. I don't think the Starling knew what to make of it and decided just to ignore it and share the food.

Starlings act like they are tough, then run away. They try to steal other birds food!

Put it just there.......

Today there were four....

That's pretty good success by that age!

Resin

That's what I thought Resin, they usually have 2 to 4 don't they? The male is left to find food for them, she is around sometimes but is probably multi tasking, making a new lot.

The female came down the bank near the back door when I was there, I spoke to her asking if she wanted food. She hopped on the stem of a plant nearer to me as if to say yes, then went to get remaining scraps of food for two babies that turned up.

There is a neighbour's cat that turns up to eat any left over food, she goes for the food I put on the grass so I've had to scare her off, poor thing is getting confused. She turned up when all the young were there looking on the plate, they went but returned. The biggest one is used to me and doesn't scare easily, I had to take that pic through the window (through glass).

That poor male must be wearing himself out, he's always running. They have always gone for left over food but are very keen now, it's probably helping them raise the babies, I'm putting some out for them 2 or 3 times a day.

I noticed how he feeds the biggest one by just shoving a lump or mouthful of food in, the latest ones are smaller and probably later hatched. He was breaking the food into small pieces when he was feeding them. I got a shot after 3 of them went leaving a small one, he carefully places it down the throat. A little blurred but it's not easy taking through a window in dull weather.

Did you see the pics I posted of the blackbird territorial fight last year? This is one determined and strong bird, he spent days or weeks chasing the other one, every time it appeared he chased it off, it went on for hours a day. This was a humdinger of a fight!

My garden is fairly large and the cats are territorial so I only get one usually that comes to eat left overs, she is a hunter but they don't usually bother with larger birds. Perhaps that fierce male scares them!

My old Mitsi cat doesn't go out often now, even though she's a wimp she had made sure the territory was hers after my other old cat died. Straypuss doesn't take a bit of notice of them, he's too well fed, but he has also made the territory his second in line to Mitsi.

We are getting some lovely birds at the moment. There were 19 species in less than an hour on the feeders last week, including a Greater spotted woodpecker and a Sparrowhawk - which just missed the Bullfinch.

Today's specials are a pair of Nuthatches which are quite rare visitors to my garden and usually in winter when food is scarce.

The nuthatch on the feeder kept giving the young bluetits and great tit a sharp peck to keep them away but they kept trying.