Hang on to Your Food if You Can

From time to time birds find food elsewhere and bring it to my garden to eat. Most often it is large lumps of bread. This juvenile Starling had found something but I can't make out whether it is an apple core or a chunk of cake. The young birds can find food but are not yet fully garden wise in the ways of keeping it. Who will end up with a free meal?



Did you guess which bird would end up with it?

I am sure one Hedgehog has learned the sounds which mean it is safe to come for its early night feast. Once Bobby has had his last tour of the garden I bolt the back door and I am sure the squeak the bolts make is one of the signals the hog listens for as it usually arrives a few minutes later.



While I was pottering about down the bottom of the garden I had noticed the occasional bee leaving one compost bin. I kept watch and sure enough there was a constant stream of red tailed bumblebees in and out of the bin which is partly open at the front.



Most of them made a quick detour on the way in to see what I was up to but then carried on with the job in hand. I had always thought of bumblebees as being fairly solitary but apparently there can be up to 200 red tails in a nest.

Juvenile Blue Tit and Sunbathing Starling

It has been great to see a juvenile Blue Tit regularly visit the feeders.





Near the bottom of the garden is an old small metal  unit. I stand the ground feeder on it until all the seed has gone. Then I remove the feeder so the birds can eat the small seeds which have fallen through. It caught me by surprise when I saw a Starling either sunbathing or shading the seeds. It must have been hot on there as the sun had been shining on the metal for hours.



After a while it stood up panting with the heat. The first time I have seen a Starling with its beak open but no sound!



After a short while it ate some of the seeds and flew away.

It was very pleasant to have the sun back yesterday after so many gloomy days. I even got the ladder out and cleaned the back gutter which was just as well as it was nearly full of dead lichen from the concrete roof tiles. I should clean it out more often but, even though it is a bungalow, I hate being more than a couple of rungs off the ground.

When I was moving the ladder around I did spot a tiny frog so at least one of this year's tadpoles has made it. I will have to keep an keen eye open when I cut the grass as they are so hard to spot until they move.

Walkies

Twice a day we go walkies no matter what the weather. Unless it is raining I normally have the TZ7 with me. Here Bobby is enjoying the interesting scents down one of our favourite lanes:



From time to time I find the occasional plant of interest.



Barley ripening in the field.
A beautiful large white rose.
Perennial Sweet Peas
Large ferns in a shaded corner
?? Possibly a geranium ??

I coudn't resist taking a bit of video of the barley even though there were plenty of wild plants in the field entrance which got in on the act.



Once again, not Bobby barking but one of the vicar's noisy brutes.

Mare and Foal Revisited

On our afternoon walk a couple of days ago I lugged the 50D and the 100-400mm lens with us on our afternoon walk. The intention being to get some better photos of the mare and her foal. The field can be seen from two different lanes. Of course when we went down the nearest lane there they were, right across the other side. We slowly ambled round to the other lane and there they were - gone. Nothing in sight. Fortunately they had just walked to a corner which was out of view and soon came back where they could be seen.






Where are you going Ma? I hadn't finished.



Heron Fights Back
Yesterday evening as I was topping up the seed feeders I could hear a lot of cawing. Looking up I could see a heron being chased by three crows or rooks. The corvids mobbed the heron for quite a while until they disappeared out of sight. Unfortunately I didn't think to fetch a camera as what happened next would have been worth videoing. When they came back into view there was just one corvid and the heron. Next thing I knew the heron had turned round and was facing the corvid. Amazingly they both hung in the same place in the sky, only their wings flapping. I didn't realise that they were able to hover. They must have stayed like that for well over a minute before the corvid beat a hasty retreat,

Friday at the Flicks (Hedgehog Mating Ritual and Damselflies)

It was fascinating the other night watching what slowly dawned on me was a Hedgehog mating ritual. Fortunately I had the camcorder set up in the kitchen. As it was set to night vision some of the faster movement becomes blurred.

The female was first to the feeding area and you can see her stop and listen as she hears the male approaching at his usual top speed followed by the usual pushing and shoving. All through the camcorder clips you can hear the well known snuffling sound.



Over and over the male appeared to be licking the back of the female and then curling up on his side and licking himself. One commenter on my YouTube video pointed out that the male bites the female to test her reaction. If she doesn't object or resist then she is ready to mate.



This ritual can go on for hours with the male constantly circling the female. This time it lasted nearly half an hour before the male suddenly headed in the direction of the Hedgehog House and the female made off towards the bottom of the garden.



 Here is a little piece of the (silent) action captured by the outdoor video camera.



There was another short meeting around midnight and lots of solo visits to tuck in to the dried mealworms, sunflower hearts and crushed unsalted peanuts washed down with a slurp of fresh water.

Damselflies:
After watching some Damselflies use the same lily leaves over and over as a landing pad I set up the camcorder and managed to capture some video. There were four Blue-tailed Damselflies and one Common Blue.


Have a great weekend observing the wildlife in your locality.

Food Glorious Food

When I think about it most wildlife seems to spend a large part of its time just looking for food. Here are some of those which came looking yesterday.

Blue Tit and Starlings
   

House Sparrow
   


Coal Tit


Bumble Bee


Smooth Newt


 Of course, once it had started to get dark, the Hedgehogs arrived. They turned up as I was clearing up in the kitchen and I decided to watch them for a while only to end up being fascinated for the best part of half an hour filming them with the camcorder set to night vision. It would appear that the charging we have seen has more to it than meets the eye at first glance. It seemed to me that what I was watching was part of the mating ritual. I will have to spend some time extracting what I can from the video as the camera was having difficulty focussing and the hogs kept moving where there were obstructions to vision.

Later:
All things being equal there should be some video of the Hedgehogs for Friday at the Flicks tomorrow.

Visiting Goldfinches

Unlike last year I only have a few Goldfinches visiting at the moment. I think a lot were lost, along with many Greenfinches, when we had a bad outbreak of finch disease.



So far I have only seen one youngster. It was by itself walking on the shed roof apparently looking for food.



Last night there was some orange and red in the sky for the first time for a while. As usual it didn't last long but I did manage to get a still photo. The camera focussed on the tree in the foreground but I like the way the out of focus clouds give a softer feel to the sky.




Heath Robinson struck again yesterday as I decided to re-build my 'intervalometer' to make it a bit more versatile. One day I will have to set it up on top of one of the local hills and see what a time lapse video will produce from there.

Something you may like to view: Paul (Greenfinch Garden on YouTube) let me know of a marvellous piece of video he had taken of a Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding her chick. Well worth a look. It can be seen HERE.