Tag Archives: birds

A New Bird for the Garden

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Green Woodpecker – previous residents had them in the garden but we have only seen them in the trees next to us. So near, yet so far.

The big news of the day is that we had a Greater Spotted Woodpecker on the peanut feeder today. based on previous experience we are hoping this may become regular and I may actually get a photograph. By the time I had got the camera, put a card in (I’d been using it for working on a coin article) and got back to the window, it had gone.

It was, at least, there longer than the parakeet, and being able to access the food, should have been happy. The woodpecker was a regular visitor to the feeders on the farm and is not a problem to other birds. We were talking about how to extend the variety of birds that visit and we have decided that we don’t know.

We tried pasta. They threw it all over the lawn. we tried white rice (recommended by many people) they turned their noses up at it. We try fruit. The squirrels like it. It seems that white bread is the only thing they like apart from seeds, peanuts and fat based foods. And mealworms. It’s just that we don’t particularly like feeding mealworms. They need soaking before serving and you don’t always feel like soaking dried mealworms at 7am.

GReat Spotted Woodpecker on a feeder on the farm

We are keeping our fingers crossed for something interesting on 23-25 January, the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. You can also do it in small gardens or, in fact, anywhere. So far 265, 725 people have signed up. One year we did it at my Mum and Dad’s house with the kids and turned up to find three jays in the garden. We’ve only had jays here twice in a year so I doubt that will happen. I also, in Nottingham, spent ten minutes waiting as  a Sparrowhawk perched on next door’s chimney and resisted the temptation to fly into our garden.

I have suggested putting cat food down to tempt the kites but Julia has vetoed the idea. It would scare the others, it makes them easier to poison (assuming you would want to) and it is, she says, cheating. I agree with the last one, as it will skew the records, but that’s just how I am – fair-minded and under the thumb of my wife.

This was going to be a post about daily word targets but it seems to have been derailed. Maybe later . . .

Great Spotted Woodpecker – and an admission that I should have labelled my photos better.

Birds, Blood and Butterflies

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Green Woodpecker feeding on ants

Julia walked out of the back door this afternoon with a jug of water to refill the bird bath. As she did, she disturbed a Green Woodpecker, which was foraging on the arid, tussocky wasteland we call a lawn.

When my parents lived here they saw one in the garden too, but they aren’t a species known for liking gardens and I had resigned myself to never being able to record one for the BTO Survey. We do have them nearby, in the belt of trees about 20 yards from the house, and we have seen them a couple of times (and heard them frequently), but, as I say, they don’t often visit gardens. Having said that, they are on the BTO list of commonly seen garden birds.

We could, if Julia hadn’t gone out with the water, have missed it completely. It is the 22nd species of bird we have seen in the garden since we moved in. I’m sure there are people with more impressive totals, but I’m quite impressed. It was a slow start and it needs some work to improve it a s a wildlife garden, so I am happy so far.

Kites fly over (we aren’t allowed to count them unless they land), there are sparrowhawks about in the area and there must be chaffinches and sparrows (someone has sparrows on their feeders about quarter of a mile away).  We’ve also had parakeets flying over. I’m hoping that with time we may eventually persuade them to land and allow us to record a few more types.

Green Woodpecker feeding on the floor

We had a cat yesterday, which is a new one for the Mammals list. This is not such an impressive list – Grey Squirrel, Brown Rat, Rabbit, Domestic Cat. It looks well fed so we are hoping it won’t do too much damage.

We also have ten species of butterfly recorded. I can definitely get a few more in with some extra planting.

We’ve also eaten our own beans, courgettes, tomatoes and rhubarb, which isn’t bad for a few pots. I had intended doing more, but I’ve had a very lazy year. We’ve also had some figs from a tree at Nene Valley Railway and one damson from our own tree. It seems not to have appreciated the move. Julia has also made Lavender bags from our Lavender, and is currently selling them to help with funding the cafe.

I had a blood test this morning and am still waiting for the result (it’s the one for the Warfarin, where they usually ring back in the afternoon. It’s getting a bit late, but I am trying not to worry.  The new surgery seems nice – it’s clean and the staff are friendly. The nurse was a bit stand-offish, but they often are. I imagine she will soon start telling me off for not looking after myself. Unfortunately, the impending phone call means I have to carry my phone about, and that, in turn, means that I will carelessly leave it somewhere random as I move around the house.  I will be back again on Friday – different blood test for different specialist. I am, so far, giving it an 8 out of 10.

Later, checking my emails, I am told the blood test result is not in.  Ah well . . .

Green Woodpecker shots are some I took on the farm.

Greenfinch

I Hear the Goldcrest Calling

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Goldcrest from Wikipedia

As I brushed my teeth this morning, I could hear a Goldcrest calling. It’s a high-pitched squeaky call, and not very attractive. It has the advantage of being easy to recognise, which is good for a partially deaf man with a poor ability to recognise bird song. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see it in the garden, but as we saw one several times yesterday it’s already recorded for the week.

I don’t have a photo of my own to use, as they flit about a lot and never seem to settle long enough to get more than a blur or a shaking twig. However, Wikipedia has come to the rescue.

For readers in the USA – the Golden Crowned Kinglet is very similar, possibly even the same species. No doubt a committee will one day sit and pontificate, and on deciding they are identical they will, as they have done so many times in recent years, rename our bird the Eurasian Golden Crowned Kinglet, because all European birds must, these days, be named in comparison to birds of the USA. If you think I bang on about the Cultural Imperialism of the USA in terms of spelling, just wait until I get going on bird names.

t was a good day for birds yesterday, with the Goldcrest, a Greenfinch, a Long-tailed Tit and a Wren. The Wren kept skittering along the fence, displaying its distinctive profile. After the breeding season birds tend to flock in mixed species groups. Scientists say it is mainly  about improved feeding efficiency ( as the birds share information of food sources) and protection against predators. The flock that visits us is 20-30 birds, which fills the garden, but is quite small in flock terms. It is mainly Blue Tits and Great Tits, with one or two others tagging along.

Goldfinches (adult and adolescent)

I didn’t have my camera and by the time I had gone to my study and returned with it, no birds. It’s always the way.

I tried the word study there, but I’m not sure it is quite right. It sounds too grand for a very small 3rd bedroom and implies a level of furnishing that I don’t have. I’m still sorting my newly assembled book cases and have a number of boxes piled on the floor. Office, writing room, spare bedroom (though that would be to confuse it with the real spare bedroom) or small room (which again, could be confusing to those using it as a euphemism for toilet). It is one of those unresolved issues. It could be a very small man cave, but it’s not really that exciting.  Any ideas?

I can’t remember what I meant to blog about, I just remember that it was going to start with the Goldcrest calling and then move on to something that seemed important. Then Julia called me through to breakfast, we started chatting about why you can get bread-makers, slow-cookers, rice boilers  and soup-makers but not porridge-makers, and gradually the thoughts dispersed and the birds replaced them.

 

Long[tailed Tits and Blue Tits at Budby Flash

I have also arranged my prescriptions with the local pharmacy and spoken to Rheumatology about moving to Peterborough so that’s a few things ticked off my list. (I add those bits as a piece of 21st Century lifestyle trivia to help the PhD student I imagine using this blog as source material in 2125). It’s going to be a funny old thesis that he writes – he’ll think we are all cyclists with bridge and bird fascinations, bibulous bibliophilic old buffers or grumpy old men, stretching from Aussie arctophiles in Ballarat to no-mates numismatists in Peterborough. If I’d moved a few more miles I’d be living in Bretton and that last sentence would have been much better. Or if I’d stayed in Nottingham.

Anyway, rambling over. I’ve just spent a couple of minutes trying to get rid of a phantom comma – turns out I need to clean the computer screen.

A Great Tit on the sunflower seed feeder – it only lasted six months before the squirrel managed to break it a variety of attacks.

 

 

Days of Disappointment with Bright Spots

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Four days ago it was a doctor day, and I was hoping to be able to discontinue my daily visits to hospital.  From that point of view, it was a disappointing day. I had my cannula replaced (it was swelling badly), was told I had five more days of IV antibiotics, was given another seven days of oral antibiotics and had my hand wrapped up like a boxer’s as they have run out of good places to put cannulas. It seems that the antibiotics are quite aggressive as chemicals and the cannulas only last two days on average, before blocking/inflaming/hurting. I have had a couple last for three days and one last for three hours, so I am about average.

Cannula is Latin for “little reed”. This knowledge, unfortunately, seems to make them hurt more.

Peacock

I have had four poems accepted recently, bringing my score for the month to nine submissions, with five acceptances, one rejection and three still waiting for decisions. Things are going quite well in that direction, though I am fast running out of material, as I haven’t been writing much in the last few weeks. I’ve been finding it hard to keep up with some pretence of blogging, so poetry has been beyond me.

So far this year I have had 30 pieces accepted. It soon builds up. However, keeping it in perspective, some of them have only been three lines. It’s not like I’m writing Paradise Lost or The Wasteland. I’ve made 45 submissions and still have five decisions pending, so it’s not too bad. I’ve missed a few submissions because I haven’t been well, so if I work a bit harder I think 100 submissions is within my grasp.

I have recently amused myself by imagining the NHS under a government headed up by Nigel Farage. He’s against “foreigners” and would, I believe, stop letting them in to the UK to work. That would mean the department I was in would lose its cleaner, most of its nurses and all of its doctors. Two receptionists and three nurses (one of whom has a bad attitude) would remain, but are unlikely to keep the department running. Meanwhile, 90% of the patients are not only white British, but are, judging by the accents, Peterborough born and bred.

Red Kite

One of the doctors is from the Gulf and is in his first week in the UK. He loves the NHS, says we are lucky to have it, and is enjoying being here. He also added that he considered our current heatwave to be “winter temperatures”.  Sometimes it’s good to see what other people think of us and to count our blessings.

Julia and my sister are going out today. The Nene Valley Railway are running a postal special today and will be demonstrating sorting and picking up/dropping the mail sacks. They won’t, unfortunately, be able to use a steam train as they are suspending steam services until the hot weather stops, having already had several grass fires along the line. They will be catching a train from the local station to connect with Travelling Post Office. I suggested that we should watch Night Mail and learn the poem.

However, we had a cup of tea and watched Person of Interest instead.

We had a positive cloud of Peacocks on the buddleias during the week – well over 40. I’ve been doing butterfly counts but apart from the Peacocks we have had very little about – a few whites, a Red Admiral and a couple of Small Tortoiseshells.

Small Tortoiseshell

Birdwise, we have seen the wren and goldfinches more frequently and had a high count of 7 long-tailed tits one morning. We also had a record number of blue tits when ten immature birds appeared on the feeders. This coincided with a lack of cheeping from the nest that appears to be under the garage roof so we deduce that this is the family that hatched in the nest. We also had a kite down to about fifteen feet over the roof, a buzzard only 100 yards away and a flyover by 16 parakeets.

It’s all happening, but I am just too tired to photograph or appreciate it.

Pictures, I’m afraid, are just general pictures for illustrative purposes.


Persistence Pays Off

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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I found that quote yesterday when replying to a comment, so if you saw it then, I apologise for the repetition. I was actually looking for another quote, but I thought that one would do just as well. It is also good enough to bear repetition.

Robin, Arnot Hill Park

For some reason my thoughts of writing always centre round this time of year. I am sitting in a book-lined room, with busts of historical figures on my shelves. It is pleasantly warm, bees are buzzing the lavender, the scent of lilacs drifts in through the open glass doors and I smile as I put my fountain pen down and look at another finished manuscript.

Reality is always a little different. I have no glass doors, my writing room is lined with chaos and the scent of toast fills the air.  I have two small busts on my shelves – Cromwell and Dickens. I chose Cromwell because I like Cromwell and I chose Dickens on account of the quality of his beard. I have tried to enthuse myself to read Dickens again but I’m failing.

Tulip

On the other hand, re-writing Wilkins Micawber as an amateur detective has a certain attraction. Pea souper fogs, opium dens and mysterious, gaunt, black-clad figures do all the work for you. All you need is talent and time . . .

Meanwhile, back at the poetry, which requires little time and, let’s be honest. only a smattering of talent, I have had some more acceptances. last week I had three accepted by one editor – a haibun, a tank and a haiku. They have never accepted a haiku off me before. Then this week I have had a haiku accepted by a magazine which has been resisting me for some years. They used to accept things, then the new editor stopped. Now, with a new editorial team, they have accepted one again. It just goes to show the power of hard work and persistence. I haven’t really improved as a poet, but I am getting more published, so it has to be the work rate and the persistence, though I suppose there are talented poets out there who would take issue with me about my approach.

Feeder with Greenfinch

 

 

 

 

 

Big News!

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Tch!, as they say, I forgot to enter a title for the last post.

I also noted that in the ten minutes between starting the edit and posting the results, I have had a rejection. It’s a very nice rejection but in my world there is no place where a nice rejection feels better than even the worst acceptance. In fact I’m not sure there is such a thing as a bad acceptance.

I have tried that editor four times and four times I have been rejected, so it was not as if it was a surprise. It’s all part of the rich tapestry of life. I looked that up, in case it was a quote from a poem. It isn’t. It seems to have been first used in a 1930s comedy record where Arthur Marshall, best known to me for being on Call My Bluff, used the phrase in the final moments of a mildly amusing record impersonating a Gym Mistress. Oundle  School, Cambridge, comic records as a gym mistress – makes you wonder about the benefits of education doesn’t it?

It’s probably time to announce the big news of the year – I am going to be a grandfather. I’ve known for a while now, but I’m old-fashioned and don’t like announcing these things too soon. I won’t be much of a grandfather as I don’t intend travelling to Canada, I’ll just be a shadowy figure on the family tree  and a vague memory from telephone calls. I may have to write a short memoir for him to read when he’s old enough.

We have had Long-tailed tits in the garden every day this week so far, which is quite good, and have a small patch of violets growing on the back lawn. That means that I have a few weeks until I have to cut the grass (it’s been looking like it needs a trim but this means I have an excuse for procrastination. Biodiversity is a wonderful thing.

Lomg-tailed tit on the feeder – actually a few weeks ago but it will illustrate this post too.

 

Red Sky at Night

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Julia took the photos for this post, including the sunset, which appears to have been made less colourful by the camera. Isn’t it always the way?

Looks like butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth, doesn’t it? Based on size and colour, we seem to have four regular visitors. And based on the way the seed is going they are all eating well. I know there’s more to nature gardening than just feeding birds, but it’s not as if squirrels really need much help to prosper.

It looks like it is time to bring some gardening tools down, as things are starting to happen and we will need to get on top of it. That means it’s definitely time to start the compost heap. I’ve been putting it off because Julia always worries about compost attracting rats, and has been particularly jumpy after we spotted the rats a while back.  Me, I’ve rarely seen a rat near compost – they tend to have better things to do in suburbia, where there is plenty of decking to hide under, and plenty of spilled bird food. Some people down our old road even used to put food out for foxes overnight, which is a surefire way to get rats.

A leap like that deserves a few seeds . . .

Meanwhile, it’s been a slow week for reading blogs. I’m sorry about that, but I left myself with a lot to do this week and am only just coming down to earth after a marathon writing session. I’m hoping to catch up with my reading this week before starting on a slightly more sensible writing spree this month. I have ten submissions to do, if I move to each form being a separate submission, which doesn’t sound much better, but if I start now instead of leaving it for three weeks I should be in much better shape to get it all done.

And finally, a robin.

Getting the Hang of It

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Teasel heads

No, not driving the electric scooter. I had several moments in that again, including a repeat of the track crossing where I came close to running off the path.  It swoops down whilst slanting off to one side and switching angles all at the same time. I probably should take a photo to explain, but I may just stop going that way. Mostly it was OK though and I am getting better at driving it.

Greylag Geese on a grey day

As I stepped outside this morning I noticed something brown and furry on the driveway, disappearing behind the car. I followed, with a sense of rattish foreboding, then looked in amazement as a rabbit hopped out of cover, through the gap in the boundary vegetation (to call it a hedge would be boastful and inaccurate), across a path and onto the grass strip between us and the woodland strip. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a rabbit in the garden.

Rabbit

The day was cold and gloomy, made more cutting by the brisk wind coming off the cold body of water.

I really need to dress better for using the scooter, including finding my gloves. I have several different pairs, but seem unable to find any at the moment. I suppose I will be looking for things for months, or years, to come. That’s the problem with moving in a haphazard fashion. It’s also part of the fun. I have rediscovered so many things in the move, including some I didn’t know I had. In the end I stopped taking photos because of the difficulty in operating the camera with no feeling in my hands.

Cormorant on a buoy

That’s about it for now. I’m going to go and sort some of the stuff we brought from Nottingham this week. The problem is that we have been bringing stuff up without sorting it, so we can get the house cleared out, but we are falling behind with the sorting at this end and the bungalow is in danger of becoming cluttered. That is precisely what we don’t want.

Teasel – me being arty

 

Must Work Harder . . .

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Teasel

It’s been a day of moderate effort and I’m hoping to pick up the pace a little in the coming days.

Success, in my case at least, isn’t built on skill, charm or inspiration, it’s built on work rate, and that’s what has been missing for the last few months. Yes, I’ve been busy moving house and writing for the Numismatic Society Facebook page, but I’ve also allowed myself to use it as an excuse for laziness. This was exposed with the last set of submissions. I was lucky to get away with that like I did. Finding and reanimating old poems, and writing some of them just minutes before the submission deadline is not a sustainable model.

But enough of that. It looks like I’ll have six out of nine accepted, possibly seven, so that’s good so far. I doubt my average will look that good by the end of the year.

Dunnock

I have searched through looking for extra places to submit work and found four more. Three have 100% records of rejecting me and I’ve never tried one of them. We will have to see how it goes. My average will undoubtedly plunge but I said 100 submissions was the target, so I must do eight or nine a month to get there.

Part of the problem is that several online journals are cutting back. Two that were monthly are now cut back to four and six times a year. I sympathise, as monthly must be hard work, but it does make it harder to find places for 100 submissions.

The squirrels, meanwhile, are finding it harder to access the bird food. They can still manage to get too it, but they can’t feed in a sustained manner as they tend to slip more they are now at full stretch. After they have fallen off a few times they tend to eat bread from the floor feeder then wander away. It’s about in balance, though I’m going to save up for some better feeders with anti-squirrel cages. We added a new species of bird to the record today, though nothing exciting – just a white dove from the small flock someone seems to keep round here. Still, it’s nice to break the monotony.

Robin on feeder

For tea we tried Quorn sausages as my sister came round to tea. They were quite good and when paired with onion gravy and mustard mash (plus sweetcorn and green beans) made a very acceptable substitute for meaty sausages. I may start using them on a regular basis as they are probably better for me than proper sausages. They are definitely no worse than the budget supermarket sausages available these days (which seem to get worse and worse). It looks like we will buy these regularly and only get meat sausages when we happen to be near a proper old-fashioned butcher.

A struggling squirrel

Travels and Birds

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Pied Wagtail

Today’s trip used underpasses and bridges and cycle tracks and took us to the local post office and the shopping centre. We posted a letter to insure the scooter and then looked at the range of shops available. I resisted the temptation to look in the charity shops and Julia bought some Gregg’s vegan sausage rolls for the freezer. I can’t tell the difference between the normal and the vegan varieties, and am convinced that rather than being a tribute to the vegan variety, it is an indictment of the quality of meat in the standard version. It was a bit like being on a rehabilitation course – first find a Post Office . . .

Rook

We saw the first crocuses of our year and I was able to take some bird photographs. Although it’s a built-up area, the first bird I photographed was a rook, normally a farmland bird. It was stalking the area outside the shops and picking at some food someone had dropped.  Sorry to be so vague, but it was difficult to tell what it was. Normally you would expect a crow to be doing this. Rooks are part of the same family but you don’t usually see them acting as urban scavengers.

Rook again

The second bird was a pied wagtail. This wasn’t a surprise as they are always linked with shopping areas and car parks in  my mind. They like the warmth and supposedly feed off bits of broken insect that fall from the cars. I’m not sure how accurate that is, as I’m not sure cars kill many insects these days, due to the presence of fewer insects and better aerodynamics. In the old days a drive in the summer countryside would result in a car festooned in insect body parts. This is not the case these days.

Pied Wagtail

The third bird shot is a collared dove. They erupted from Europe in the 1950s – reaching the UK in 1953b and first breeding in 1956. They were still unusual when I was young, but are now regarded as common garden birds.  They frequently visit our garden.

Collared Dove

Not far from home we passed by some houses that had large mature trees planted on the land just beyond their garden fences. This seemed to result in better bird life, though at the cost of some worry about falling trees. One of them had a big group of sparrows and some starlings round their feeders. We haven’t seen either species in or garden yet. I’m not 100% sure that I’m bothered about this as they can both be a bit overpowering.

On our return home we saw the kite overhead again and the squirrel on the feeder. It’s having to work hard for the seed these days, so we are letting it feed for a while. When we fill up the feeders we will probably add spice as a deterrent.

Squirrel

Squirrel again