Today it is the turn of the House Sparrows. It is not only the Goldfinches which squabble for a place on the feeders. Lighting very variable so high ISO.
Even this Starling found squabbling Sparrows too much to bear!
Try the basement, there's space there.
If you don't move I'll smother you.
Give us a kiss and stop moaning.
I'm telling you - I booked this seat yesterday.
I'm pleased to see that I still get visits from Tree Sparrows.
Not forgetting a pair of crossed Starlings. Maybe this should be on my Coat of Arms.
I think the numbers of Goldfinches is still increasing here. Yesterday I gave up counting at thirty as they spend so much time squabbling and dashing about. The feeders were fully occupied with some on the lawn and more gathering the spillage under the feeders plus others queueing on the wires above.
This one was a definite case of: "Hey! You! Get back in the queue and wait your turn!"
Accompanying the flapping and fluttering was plenty of cursing. Not just Goldfinches anxious for their breakfast but Greenfinches bemused at what all the fuss was about..
I haven't seen Honey the Hedgehog for three nights now. Not one visit. I was not surprised last night as there was heavy rain until 4 a.m. but the previous two nights were dry though cool. Maybe she is not straying very far from wherever her nest is.
I didn't think there would be anything worth mentioning today. Hedge trimming, weeding, generally pottering about. I have lost one Goldfinch to some predator or other. I didn't see what but saw the evidence. Whether the local killer black cat or a raptor I am not sure but I incline to the cat at the moment.
Just went through to make a cup of coffee when I saw what at first I thought was a House Sparrow with different markings. Grabbing the camera I took a few shots before it disappeared as all the birds are very skittish at the moment. It wasn't until I examined the photos and had a look in my books that I found out what I had seen was a Tree Sparrow. In fact there had been two but I was concentrating so hard on the first one I saw I missed seeing the other.
What had caught my eye was the black cheek spot and the brown head. The slight yellow on the beak was only noticeable on the photographs.
Just checked again and they are back. There were at least three and possibly four. Two stayed long enough to capture a piece of video - with plenty of Goldfinch squabbling in the background!
According to my trusty 'Collins Complete Guide to British Birds' the Tree Sparrow has a restricted and shrinking range which seems to be mainly down the east side of the UK. It is occasionally found on the outskirts of villages but is more commonly associated with untidy arable farms. The population has suffered a catastrophic decline of more than 90 percent in recent decades. Lack of winter stubble fields and reduced numbers of weeds in crops have reduced its food stocks.
Honey the Hedgehog continues her nightly visits. Last night she only showed a couple of times before midnight. One thing I have noticed the past few nights - where she used to make a bee line for the food first, now she heads straight for the water bowl. As her first visit is later than it used to be maybe she is finding food in more than one garden.
Any sudden jumps in the video are caused by the recorder as it is set to start recording when it detects movement. If Honey stays in one place for a while it will stop recording until she moves again.
When I made my last order of bird seed from CJ Wildlife I spotted this so I couldn't resist treating myself to a new coffee mug.
Couldn't resist this either:
"I don't care how acrobatic you are I keep telling you they won't taste any different upside down."
For the past few years there has been a steady trickle of birds visiting the various feeder I have tried in different arrangements in the back garden. Just recently it has become pure bedlam. Yesterday morning I gave up counting Goldfinches when I reached twenty four. Add to that several Greenfinches, Chaffinches and numerous House Sparrows and there is chaos when they all decide to book a seat at the Birdy Bistro at the same time.
Sometimes several will queue waiting their opportunity.
Others get impatient and prefer bully boy tactics.
I usually film through the kitchen window and my camcorder has one failing, no way to add an external microphone to pick up the sound from outdoors. A recent question from Shirl prompted me to wake up my remaining grey cell and find a solution. After scrabbling through my various junk boxes looking for a way to get a microphone outside I remembered I had an old baby monitor which I usually use to monitor the front door bell with the receiver in the shed so I can hear if I have a visitor.
After a bit of thought I took the baby monitor apart, filed a small hole in the side and moved the microphone outside the case. This now sits in a hole in the end of the shed not far from the feeders. It is fairly well protected from the elements as the wall of the shed is one inch thick and on the outside a sloping solar panel and the roof overhang keep off the rain and some of the wind.
The baby monitor transmitter in position with the microphone (the black bit just on the right) in the hole.
The receiver is in the kitchen about six feet from the camcorder. Results are not perfect. It is an old unit and the frequency it used is now allocated to other things so I get a bit of interference but here is a sample of the unit in use. Not much sound to begin with but as things hot up at the Bistro it gets noisier for a while.
I think that now conveys a better impression of what it is like here three times a day. Next thing is to get hold of a modern digital version which should eliminate any interference.
I have one small tree, grafted on dwarf rooting stock, which is a treat in Spring and Autumn. In Spring it is a mass of flowers which appear before the leaves. In the Autumn the leaves turn from green to red. Yesterday I took two series of photographs. The first is in daylight and the second at night by flash.
Finally (sighs of relief all round) we spotted this little frog during our afternoon perambulation. The photo was taken with my mobile phone and fortunately little froggy let me get the phone within a few inches for a nice clear portrait.
Victor Meldrew mode - "I don't believe it!" This is my second attempt at this post. All done once with the copies of the video clips being uploaded to Flickr. When I posted it and checked things Flickr had made a complete mess of all the clips with missing frames and jerky movement. Hopefully that will make this week's three disasters over and done with. Copies are now on YouTube - fingers crossed.
No new subjects but new clips so on with the show......
Most days I hear a Magpie chuntering away in a tree. I often wonder whether this is the nearest they get to a song or whether it is their equivalent of Victor Meldrew, always complaining about something. (This is the only clip with sound today)
Here a Sparrow is pretending to be disguised as a Goldfinch so it can find a feeding space.
If a Goldfinch can't find space at the feeders the only thing left is to glean any seed dropped by the more fortunate ones.
Finally another opportunity arose to film the Dunnock as it searched the wooden beams which support the feeders then moved to the top of the bird table and ended up sliding off when it lost its grip on the plastic roof.
Have a good weekend everyone and don't get blown over by the windy weather forecast for Saturday.
First a very big thank you for all the messages of support over the past day or so. They have helped a lot on keeping me going.
When I checked my YouTube account at 7.30 this morning the old video thumbnails were still missing but another look a few minutes ago showed that they had been restored. It must have been the length of time their 'improvements' and recent upgrade has taken to catch up with everything. It would have helped things if their system hadn't sent messages that accounts had been permanently disabled which was a bit of a shock to my system to say the least. One saying it was temporarily unavailable would have been better wording.
Just a couple of piccies today. Normally I dead head all of my flowers. For some reason this year I missed the Flag Irises which went on to produce a profusion of seed pods. As the stems collapsed under the weight of seeds many were partly eaten by slugs like the first picture but the seeds were untouched and look as though they are ripening anyway. The uneaten ones are just beginning to split open normally. What a lovely brilliant orange the seeds are.
Many thanks to Chris Rose who pointed out - Your photo is of the seed pod of the Stinking or Beefsteak Iris (so called because its crushed leaves are meant to have that sort of smell ...) which is Iris foetidissima. It is nice when visitors take the time to let me know when I have misidentified something - which can happen frequently.
