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Post by plocket on Mar 22, 2007 10:12:33 GMT 1
As spring really does seem to be sprunging, and coz 4P (I think it was 4P) suggested a thread about our observations, I thought I would report on the little joy's I've seen today. And please feel free to add your observations.
I watched a rather large pigeon land on the top of my feeding station, and chuckled at how he was trying to get at the seed feeders which were dangling out of reach below. No matter how he tried he didn't have the aguility of the smaller birds and he couldn't get the food. He does tidy up anything that falls out (or gets rejected!) so I don't feel sorry for him.
We are regularly getting robins, blue tits and wrens in the garden now, and yesterday I saw a chaffinch pair twittering at each other in a tree just beyond the garden wall. A male blackbird is also visiting fairly regularly and I would like to think it's the same bird that gave me so much joy last year.
Nothing doing with the frogspawn in the watergarden and I hope they've survived the cold we've had recently - the ice on the watergarden was an inch thick yesterday!
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Post by madonplants on Mar 22, 2007 10:32:17 GMT 1
I feel in a good mood this morning. Twenty minutes ago, I saw our first robin in the garden. When I got the camera out, it had gone! Yesterday we had a female chaffinch in the sorbus we have. So we do get more than the starlings, pigeons, crows, rooks, collared doves and my favourite the two blackbirds in our garden. Frogspawn, in the fish pond, is still doing OK. I wish I could see a blue or great tit, but maybe one day! Oh well if we are still here come the summer, there WILL be more, I hope!! Once these borders have been planted up, that is. I have so many seeds coming up, it must get better come the summer. Oh I forgot, plenty of bees about!
Maybe my garden isn't bad for wildlife, atm!
Keith
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Post by 4pygmies on Mar 22, 2007 22:33:49 GMT 1
Lots to see at home and outside the leek shed today. The cold weather doesn't seem to stop the wildlife. The robins are getting tamer and tamer at work. They sit on the leek crates waiting for bugs to be thrown at them. They're lovely. We saw 4/5 deer running across the fields too. At home the birds are singing their socks off. I have so many birds on my beach hut feeder. On the way home saw a Hare really close to the road and a weasel ran across the road, he was soo fast!
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Post by sweetleaf on Mar 23, 2007 9:52:59 GMT 1
Two foxes woke me at ten past four this morning... their cries were like a baby in pain, they were facing each other off across the front garden border and I watched them for a few minutes, they were both crouched down almost flat to the ground.
I must have moved or something because they both looked up at me then scarpered !
They didnt look very well fed (or they were juvenile), not a lot of meat on them compared with others I have seen.
Being wide awake then, I stayed up and was treated to the most enthusiastic dawn chorus I have heard for a long time, spring is definitely sprung! ;D
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Post by The witch on Mar 23, 2007 9:57:36 GMT 1
Lucky you  I have never seen a fox in the flesh! |
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Post by plocket on Mar 23, 2007 10:09:40 GMT 1
Never??? Wow! I used to get so sick of them where we used to live, but they were city foxes, not "real" foxes. City ones have attitude!!!
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Post by sweetleaf on Mar 23, 2007 10:10:02 GMT 1
I have a huge park on my doorstep, and Foxes come from there, they rummage the bins and make a bit of mess but not to the point that they are a regular pest.
We used to get the occasional deer too, which caused a few problems and we still get the occasional rabbit, I think they are suffering from a fall in population due to a Hemorrhagic disease........the rabbit holes on the lottie arent occupied.
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Post by 4pygmies on Mar 23, 2007 10:43:17 GMT 1
Do city foxes predate on rats??
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Post by sweetleaf on Mar 23, 2007 10:44:22 GMT 1
All foxes enjoy a rat kebab!
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Post by 4pygmies on Mar 23, 2007 10:46:49 GMT 1
I LOVE foxes.....why don't these horrid horsy and hounds people chase the rats instead? Now that's an idea......
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Post by sweetleaf on Mar 23, 2007 10:48:34 GMT 1
So do I!
I think the fox hunters forced them into the cities, and they found it to their liking, and stayed! ;D
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Post by Sleepy on Mar 23, 2007 10:49:53 GMT 1
It's a shame there isn't anything to chase down fox hunters - the true vermin of our countryside.
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Post by sweetleaf on Mar 23, 2007 10:52:25 GMT 1
Perhaps their dogs could be put to that use instead?
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Post by madonplants on Mar 23, 2007 11:36:08 GMT 1
Lucky you I have never seen a fox in the flesh! With those fields behind you, that is surprising. Maybe you haven't looked at the right time of day! Have you not heard them though? Their screams in during the mating season ~December/January are quite scary if you didn't know what it was!! I grew up with foxhunting, as my Dad's boss always organised events. I hated seeing them all going out in their red coats saying it was the thrill of the ride and not catching a fox that mattered. I could write a book on this, but won't. I will just say that foxes will normally self regulate themselves, so that if two families get killed other foxes will come in and breed more to compensate. Keith |
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Post by madonplants on Mar 23, 2007 11:38:26 GMT 1
Perhaps their dogs could be put to that use instead? Maybe the dogs that would get put down, as they don't make the grade, could do this!!! Keith |
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Post by The witch on Mar 23, 2007 12:38:55 GMT 1
I do hear foxes Keith and Muntjac deer.  But I mostly hear pigs, there are loads of fields full of pigs here - they make the most dreadful noises, when I first heard them I thought a woman was being murdered in the woods.  |
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Post by madonplants on Mar 23, 2007 12:51:51 GMT 1
I do hear foxes Keith and Muntjac deer. But I mostly hear pigs, there are loads of fields full of pigs here - they make the most dreadful noises, when I first heard them I though a woman was being murdered in the woods. Tell me about it!!! One of the days as a kid, I was looking out of my bedroom window looking for foxes etc. (my window was opposite the big field ;D) I noticed a man running across the field carrying a large bag!! We then found out later, that he had burgled the big house and I had to speak to the police over what I had seen. So fox watching/dawn chorus listening does come in handy sometimes!! Keith |
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Post by plocket on Mar 23, 2007 13:32:57 GMT 1
I've just been watching a pigeon going backwards and forwards from the tree at our garden wall - I could hear the mate cooing so I guess they are making or improving their nest. I don't really want them to nest nearby coz I don't really like pigeons, but I'm not going to do anything about it. I had a chatter with some of the birds while I was gardening - a wren, a robin, a blackbird and numerous bluetits. Oh and a large bird was perched on our TV aerial early this morning - I heard the aerial twang as the bird was took off!
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Post by plocket on Mar 28, 2007 10:46:44 GMT 1
Oh wow!!! We’ve just had a dinky little bird hopping along the kitchen windowsill, probably looking for little insects to eat. I think it was either a long-tailed tit or a coal tit – whichever, it was very cute!
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Post by The witch on Mar 28, 2007 17:13:12 GMT 1
Longtailed tit are lovely birds, very small too, they usually fly around in groups of 6 or so. Coal Tits look more like Great Tits
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Post by Sleepy on Mar 28, 2007 17:16:12 GMT 1
Longtailed tit are lovely birds, very small too, they usually fly around in groups of 6 or so. Coal Tits look more like Great Tits But in black and white ;D |
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Post by The witch on Mar 28, 2007 17:20:49 GMT 1
............ and with very short tails in comparison.  |
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Post by plocket on Mar 28, 2007 17:36:41 GMT 1
Well it was difficult to see it's tummy - I could only see it's head really but it's tummy wasn't yellow!! It looked as though it had a long tail as it flew off.
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Post by plocket on Apr 6, 2007 19:44:44 GMT 1
The tadpoles are growing and we are starting to feed them rabbit food pellets - I'm starting to worry that we have too many for our water garden, but I guess nature will take care of that! : Was reprimanded by a pair of Great Tits today while I hung the washing out. I've no idea where they are nesting but if they are in the tree at the end of the garden wall it's getting crowded in there. I'm sure we've got blackbirds, blue tits, sparrows and pigeons in it (it's like a highrise flat!) and there's been wrens flitting in and out too. I've started to hear the woodpeckers again during the day (perhaps because I'm outside more now) and the owls in the night because we have the windows open again. |
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Post by The witch on Apr 9, 2007 9:13:26 GMT 1
The tadpoles are growing and we are starting to feed them rabbit food pellets - I'm starting to worry that we have too many for our water garden, but I guess nature will take care of that! : I think fish food would be best P - as rabbits are vegetarian, aren't they?  |
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I have never seen a fox in the flesh!
