White - Feathers, Lily and Lighting for Hedgehogs

I have noticed over the past year that quite a few birds have white feathers. This has been mentioned on other blogs that I read (including Bird Table News) and has been spotted in several parts of the world but nobody seems to have come up with a reason as to why this seems to be increasing. Today my attention was drawn to this Sparrow with the large amount of white on its head. It looks as though it has been standing out in the snow.



The other day I was pleased to see the first of the water lilies opening in my pond. Many people think that they need deep water. Some do but there are varieties which prefer shallow water. Mine grow well in just 10 inches of water. This is a large flowering variety with a bloom about 3.5 inches across. Each flower only lasts a short time but once they get established there is a sucession of blooms right through the Summer. The large leaves give shade and shelter to the pond dwellers.



For a while now I have toyed with the idea of increasing the amount of white light where the Hedgehogs come to visit. Yesterday I finally got round to converting a small flood lamp to hold two 12 volt LED lamps. Not long ago LED lamps gave poor lighting but the technology is moving on and these give the equivalent of about 20W each. I tried them out last night and the Hedgehogs were not put off at all. Unfortunately the camera switched to black and white about 5 minutes before the hogs arrived so today I altered the camera to stay in colour all the time. Tonight I hope to get some colour video.



The photo shows one of the bulbs. It looks massive but in reality it is the standard size used for halogen spotlights in the home. The juvenile Starling is looking down on the flood light which itself is quite compact.

Writing of colour hog video, Shirl at Shirl's Gardenwatch has a terrific entry about Hedgehogs visiting her garden with a great piece of colour video, photos and lots of information about attracting them to your own garden.

Regular readers may remember the video of the Rook unhooking the fat ball feeder. I sent that to Springwatch and they have included it in the videos on the site. All the movies that people have sent in can be seen on the Your Movies section of the BBC Springwatch site.

Wet, Wet, Wet!! + Summer Garden Wildlife Survey

I know the garden desperately needed some rain but why does it all have to come at once? It didn't start raining until we just got going on the afternoon walk. To begin with it was fairly steady but soon after we returned the heavens opened for a real deluge accompanied with thunder which rumbled round for ages. At least the thunder moved on but the rain kept up for hours.

I felt really sorry for all the wildlife which has to carry on the daily task of finding food to keep going for another day no matter what.

The look on this poor Greenfinch seemed to sum up the situation:

Please turn the rain off.


Every time I looked out of the kitchen window there were soaking wet birds.



A Wood Pigeon looked really miserable but seemed to make no attempt to find shelter.


On a lighter note - I have an outdoor clock mounted on an imitation wagon wheel. A few days ago a Wood Pigeon was perched on top of it and I couldn't help thinking ... some people have a Cuckoo Clock .... I've got a Pigeon Clock.



Time to go and chop up some more peanuts as that feeder is getting a bit low.
Enjoy your wildlife watching.

RSPB Summer Garden Wildlife Survey

I only found out this morning about the RSPB Summer Garden Wildlife Survey while watching the TV at breakfast time. Like the Spring survey they are asking for an hour of our time to note what wildlife appears in the garden during any period of one hour during this week. (8 - 14th June) Details can be found on the RSPB site. You can click on the above link to go straight there.

Honey Visits the Pond + Garden Birds Feeding

Last night Honey visited the paved area by herself. She didn't stay there for very long - about a minute during all the time I was watching.



About twenty minutes after that I let Bobby out in the back garden for his last look round. He had hardly stepped out of the door before he was making a beeline for the pond waterfall and climbed up on the raised flower bed next to it. From about forty feet away he had heard the faint sounds of a Hedgehog. I went over to have a look and there was Honey on the side of the waterfall looking at the water. I have never seen her use the bowl of water I put out and had wondered where she went to drink. Now I know. Henry always drinks from the bowl. Honey would have had to climb to get where she was as there is no slope up to that raised bed. I have heard that Hedgehogs are good climbers. Unfortunately I hadn't taken a camera with me and for once she didn't run away.

This morning, for the first time for quite a few days, I set the camcorder up in the kitchen to see what was going on. Here is a compilation of some of the usual visitors tucking in to whatever was on offer:

Female Blackbird
Juvenile finch - but not sure which
Male Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Adult Starling
Fledgling Starlings
Magpie



I am always fascinated at the way the finches strip the outer shell from Sunflower seeds without losing the kernel.

The most difficult to capture was the Magpie. It came many times but as soon as I just raised my hand to start the video it flew away but I finally managed to catch it unawares.

Inactivity

Very little been going on here these past few days - indoors anyway. My worst ever attack of gout has meant hours of boring time sat with my foot up watching the idiot lantern in the corner of the room.

Life is just as hectic as normal outside. Plenty of regular visitors to the feeders including the inevitable Jackdaw.

From MIDMARSH JOTTINGS

Most of the juvenile Starlings are now having to feed themselves as they arrive with hardly an adult in sight. Life is at least becoming more peaceful in that direction. This morning a juvenile Blackbird chased off a juvenile Starling, actually catching up with it in the air and plucked out a feather. The juvenile Blackbird returned to the beam which supports the feeders and spat out one grey feather. I could almost see the look of disgust on its face.

The night before last I could hear a Tawny Owl out and about but didn't manage to spot it.

Henry and Honey visited the paved area at different times just before bedtime last night and Bobby was so pleased to see both of them when he went outside. He was wagging his tail like mad as he went for a closer look. The past few nights they had moved on by the time Bobby was allowed out and I could see he looked really disappointed when he couldn't hear them. This seems to have become the highlight of his night expeditions.

Now I'm impatiently waiting for the medication to bring my foot back to its normal size so I can get back to observing the goings on outdoors.

Black Velvet

During our, very slow, afternoon walk Bobby spotted what I first thought was a pile of jet black feathers. When he had finished investigating I could see it was the black velvet coat of a dead mole. It looked uninjured so it is a mystery as to what killed it. (Both photos were taken with the camera in my mobile phone)

Coal Tits, Jackdaws and Silence

I have been quite surprised to see that one of the recent constant visitors to the ground feeder has been a Coal Tit. Probably a pair as sometimes one arrives a few seconds after another has left. I never saw them feed on the lawn but they seem to like the feeding tray a lot. Coal Tits are easily recognised by their tiny size and that 'badger stripe' on the back of the head.



This one, caught as it left, seems to have a large thick beak but closer examination shows that it is making off with a black Sunflower seed. They never stay to eat, just fly in, collect what they want and leave for the safety of nearby bushes straight away.



Seen every day now will be one or more Jackdaws. They are extremely nervous birds, always on the lookout for danger. One quick glimpse of me with those white shiny eyes and they are away like a shot. To think it was January when I saw one in the garden for the first time. Now they are daily regulars, sometimes joining the Rooks on the lawn or trying to find a way to raid the fat ball feeders.

From MIDMARSH JOTTINGS

They grab food so fast I am beginning to wonder whether the bulge under the beak is a place to store food in the same way as the Rooks. I have read that adults have been observed sharing food.



A piece of video of Jackdaws gathering seed from the lawn. There are two episodes and as they were taken on different days they are probably different individuals.



The second, close up, section shows off the leathery black legs of the Jackdaw. They really do dig deep to find the seeds, sometimes pulling up tufts of grass in the process. The sound on the second section is of those pesky Starlings again.

Silence is Golden

As we came back from the afternoon walk, instead of seeing the normal couple of dozen Starlings I was greeted with the sight of a couple of score all heading towards my tall leylandii. I though I was in for a very noisy late afternoon. Having dumped the bit of shopping I unlocked the back door to have a look. Not a bird moving and only the sound of one lone Sparrow. All the Starlings were very still in the tree. Even the youngsters were perfectly quiet!



Looking around the sky I spotted what appeared to be a Sparrow Hawk hovering high up about a quarter of a mile away. Needless to say by the time I fetched the camera it had vanished from sight but the beautiful silence continued for five to ten minutes more. Even the Sparrow had fallen silent. Every bird kept quite still in its resting place. Slowly the bravest flew from their perches. Some Starlings went on their way but the usual gang came down to feed and deafen me again. All was back to normal.

The Waiting Game and a Loud Snuffle

Yesterday was that day most motorists dread - MOT day! It was a question of dropping off the car at 8.30 a.m. for that and a full service and then staying within earshot of the phone, just in case..... I put the phone in the kitchen where I could hear it and spent some time in the garden. Another waiting game was by the pond waiting for anything interesting to appear as I had the camcorder on its tripod at the ready. Not a lot of activity all told but a few episodes made their way on to the DVD.

Three appearances of a Common Newt
A Giant Pond Snail
A Dunnock watching from a small tree just feet away from me
Some miniature bullrushes waving in the breeze
A bee visiting an Iris growing as a pond marginal.



A better view of the Iris which has opened so rapidly as it was just a bud two days before. This is the same Iris but different cameras record different shades of colour!



It was impossible to film a Waterboatman as they were darting about everywhere so I had to make do with a sill photo. You can clearly see the elongated legs it uses to scull across the water as it lives its life floating on its back.



For those who have been following the progress of the juvenile Blackbird - it continues to spend many hours in and around my garden. It has become my one ally in trying to keep the noisy Starlings at bay. This is especially so with the ground feeder. I have often seen this young bird chase adult Starlings away.



At long last I managed to get a sound recording of Henry doing his snuffling act. Last night both Hedgehogs appeared at the same time on the paved area. Honey spent a lot of her time moving backwards as Henry grabbed most of the mealworms and crushed peanuts I had scattered.

Later on when Bobby went out for his last tour of the gardens he had his usual careful listen round and then went over to the side fence near the conservatory. He had heard Henry who was the other side of the fence amongst the weeds. In fact both Hedgehogs were there and I could only see Honey but Henry could be heard quite clearly. Luckily I had the Sony mp3 recorder in my shirt pocket so I crouched down, with Bobby looking over my shoulder to see what I was up to, and managed to get the recording. I have added that sound to the bit of compilation video of them both last night.



More photos and video of hedgehogs can also be found on Shirl's Gardenwatch. Some lovely colour footage has just been added along with video of various young birds.

Oh, yes, the car did pass its MOT so that is over for another twelve months. I had thought briefly of trading in my eleven year old Mitsubishi Carisma for a new car but from what I have seen on various consumer programmes and what the garage owner was telling me about some of the new cars he looks after I am better off with my reliable, well built oldie. After all, it is only just broken in as it hasn't done 60,000 miles yet!

Hedgehogs

The two Hedgehogs continue to visit the garden each evening. Last night I only saw Honey. I can tell by her size and by the fact that she ran away at full speed when I went out to try to get some still photos of her. Henry normally stands his ground and waits until I go away so he can resume eating. Honey is having a fine time finding the dried mealworms I had scattered amongst the crushed peanuts.



I still haven't managed to record the loud snuffling which only seems to be made by Henry. I have tried several searches to find out what the sound indicates. It depends which site you read as to what the meaning is. Two places I found which tell of several sounds Hedgehogs make are here and here.

A very interesting blog I found is Hog Blog with many terrific pictures and videos of Hedgehog visitors to a garden. If you are interested in observing them then it is well worth a visit. There I saw activity similar to that seen here where Hedgehogs face each other nose to nose. You will see some quite aggressive behaviour where Hedgehogs charge and bulldoze others out of the way. Not the cuddly, if prickly, creatures we normally think of. There is definitely more to Hedgehog behaviour than meets the eye!

I am still debating whether I have a pair here or an older adult and one of the offspring I saw last year. The snuffling would suggest that it could be more a 'keep away from my territory' than a 'is it time to make babies' type of communication.