Garden Diaries

Today it seems that finally we have a full day of sun and the birds are coming back. Well at least the bigger ones. The past few days I have noticed that the two jays are coming together now and they don't get to be scared by other birds, on the contrary they have got to the habit of chasing the jackdaws who unfortunately are back, at least not in the big numbers they used to...
Still no sign of any of the small birds, where all the finches and blue teats have gone? They can't just have vanished or decide to boycot our garden...
Although there are no small birds coming to our garden at least we've got a considerate amount o butterflies and bumble bees. As we come from London and we were not used to much of wildlife there, although we had quite a big number of foxes and squirrels (after 8 months living on the island still haven't seen a single squirrel...) who they used to visit gardens and walk bravely in the middle of the road despite the traffic, we normally wouldn't see a lot of insects, except from same strange reason a lot of ladybirds which I haven't seen here at all...So seeing all these different colour and shape butterflies it is a treat and it kind makes up for the lack of small birds I guess. Still I'm hoping that I will see the return of the finches and blue teats pretty soon, if only the weather behaves as a normal weather should be for this time of the year, a bit of sun and heat will do a lot of good.

Although the weather is still 'funny' for this time of the year at least it is a bit warmer and sunnier than it has been all summer. Something that other species seem also to have noticed. A small walk on the coast showed a bit more animal action than I have seen recently. There were quite a number of rabbits munching around not bothered too much by all the human tourists or locals, a considered number of small crickets on leaves and of course plenty of local birds. Even in our garden there seems to be quite a population of insects as well, mostly white buterflies, bubblebees and of course spiders who are extremely busy and they go back to work straight after the outside windows have been cleaned. It is amazing how fast they can spin and how deliquate their work is.

From the bird point of view we still missing all the small ones, particularly the finches (even the noise one) and blue teats. They have simply disappeared.
The ones that they keep coming are the blackbirds, the magpies, woodpigeons, a pair of jays and the occasional jackdaw (they seem to be all over the town but they have stopped coming to our garden in big numbers, something which we should thank the bad weather for). It is really strange that all the small birds have disappeared but I'm hoping that if the weather stays dry for a few days at least (yeah right...) then it is quite likely that they will appear again. I sincerely hope so as I have missed my noisy finch!

It still amazes me what a difference a sunny day can make into the lives of animals, birds and all the living creatures in general. I mean when it is raining and it is general cold and miserable there is hardly any bird traffic outside and even inside cats and humans feel irritable and we are rather sluggish with less motivated to do anything.
But when the sun is out and it is nice and warm (still not as warm as this time of the year suppose to be) there is a bird traffic outside and even the cats seem to be chattering to the birds they see outside.

So after a couple of days of sunshine we saw the familiar faces of greenfinches, blackbirds, etc and even the jay seemed to have become all of the sudden a bit braver. He seems to be coming more regularly now and to stay for longer periods while before he used to be really nervous and to fly off almost immediately. It is also such a beautiful bird despite his size and one of few that you like seeing quite often in your garden although at first the female blackbird seemed to chase him quite a lot for some reason.
The woodpigeons as well have now got used to the garden and they appear to be also less afraid and even to walk in the patio near the door while my cat has her back turned. Any moment now I expect the woodpigeon to start dancing and teasing the cat like Jerry the mouse normally would have done from those old Tom & Jerry cartoons. Still it is nice to see the birds not to mind the cats and to finally realise that they are not at any threat as the cats are and they are staying indoors with no access to the garden. They can watch but they can't harm any feathered visitor.

After a couple of semi-decent days with a bit of sunshine and not as warm as it should have been for the middle of the summer, the rain is back again, confusing everybody and in particular our bird visitors in our garden. With all this bad weather it seems that we have lost many of our regular birds, particularly the teats and finches, and the noisy one, which I haven't heard or seen for a few days now.
But at least we have some other regulars now, a bit bigger ones, with the young magpie taking residency more or less in our garden as she spends more of her time in our garden as there is food along with a few wood pigeons and in particularly a bully male one who seems to chase all the other ones and he seems particularly fond of a young female who doesn't leave in peace to eat. On the other hand the whole thing is rather entertaining particularly from our catspoint of view as they seem to find the whole pigeon chasing scenario rather entertaining (perhaps more entertaining than what is currently on normal TV channels).

Along with the wood pigeons the mother and young magpie another regular is the male blackbird and thank god for the less than regular now, the jackdaws who seem to finally got the message and to have stopped coming at least in hordes.

The one from our current regulars who proves to be quite a character and who for some reason I think it's a female is the young magpie who has become really bold and brave. This morning I spotted her walking on the window sill while she was trying to get to the seeds and the few bread crumbs I left for the smaller birds and at the same time she was pecking at the window under the strict observation from one of my cats who was sitting on the window sill inside. The young magpie simply didn't care and she didn't even mind the cat, on the contrary she looked like she was daring my cat to come and get her, knowing obviously that she was quite safe because of the double glazed window. She might be at times noisy but she is proving to be quite entertaining and a very brave young bird.

It's being a few days now since I've written anything but the weather hasn't being of much help or improvement. It seems that whoever god is in control of the seasons he/she decided to skip summer this year and move straight to autumn. I mean it is the 4th of July already and we didn't even have one decent sunny summer's day yet without raining, wind and not being cold. And if we humans are complaining imagine how the rest of nature feels like especially those species like birds who are dependent on good weather to find food...

I guess this is where humans can be for once helpful and not so destructive and provide at least some food for them. This is why I guess the last few days our local birds are queueing for the bird feeder and waiting for their turn to poke their heads in one of the feeding holes available. The blue teats are the cutest as they try to fit most of their head and as much of their body in those holes and one of these days one of them sooner or later will get stuck in one of the holes. But it is quite funny watching the other birds waiting patiently to get an opportunity to go to the feeder (we are planning to add another one now that they finely decided to use it) by standing on the fence next to it or on the metal hanger from which the feeder is hanging. Even the blackbirds which their number has increased the past few days have now figured out that there is food under the feeder since the little ones are messy eaters and they throw seeds that they don't like everywhere.
The bad weather had one good effect though, now it seems that less jackdaws are coming, let's hope that this is because they found somewhere else to go. The younng magpie though is still coming and demands to be fed but now his/her mum ignores him/her and she/he has to fed for him/herself. But the noise that this young bird makes for his size is quite unbelievable and very annoying.

This morning the weather seems a bit more promising with a quite a bit of sunshine but on the other hand it doesn't seem to be a lot of bird action with the only exception the blackbird who was first to go where I put some fresh food. Let's hope that the weather stays dry and that more birds will appear again.

In between watching Wimbledon and doing work I keep an eye on the bird traffic outside and the behaviour of a young magpie who appeared out of the blue yesterday and since then has seem to taken a liking to our garden, convinced me to stop what I was doing and to write down what I was seeing.
We had many regular visits from the mother magpie for a while now and the mother seemed in a bad rather state, feather moulding, wings and tails not in top form, signs of a dedicated mother. But since yesterday a young magpie appeared on the top of one of our garden walls, squawking and demanding to be fed while his/her poor mother was carrying food to him and was trying at the same time to keep all the other big birds away (mainly the pesky jackdaws). The young magpie is quite big and at first sight it looks like an adult one and only in comparison to his mother you can see the difference.
But today he has become braver and decided to come along to where his mum is getting the food from, mostly our feeding wall, where he also discovered one of the water bowls which we keep full of water for the birds. Today of course is not a typical summer day and although is not pouring with rain yet it is pretty cold for this time of the year. But this silly young bird decided that he needed a dip in the bowl and first he started by dipping his feet, then his bottom and finally he dipped in completely emerging soaking wet, so wet that he actually scared away the jackdaws that they were eating near by at the time. I wish I could understand his reasons for doing so or that I had my camera at hand...if he wanted to get wet he could have easily just waited for the rain to start. What was the point of this cold shower this morning? Well I guess the fact that he is still quite young and inexperienced might explain it...Still the day is young and he might come back for another dip.

Well, today was a rather suprising day not only because of the amount of bird traffic we had in our garden - despite the constant downpour all day (poor people in Glanstobury) but also because of the sudden appearance of a young blackbird who reminds us a lot of the young one who we kinda looked after for a few days a couple of weeks ago. Of course it is quite probable that this is just another bird and we are just hoping but the fact remains that he hops around in the garden as the little one used to do, going to place he used to hide, comes close to the door and looks inside quite bravely and as my partner says he even tilts his head like the young one used to do. Could it be the same bird? If so why did it appear now after all this time and where had he been the past couple of weeks?
Of course we probably just hoping and expecting a behaviour from a small bird that birds usually do not exhibit but then again many migrant birds come again and again to the same place to nest and raise families. So who knows?

As for other birds there was great a good mix today, even blue teats who I hadn't seen for a few days hanging from the feeder as well as quite a few green finches (not as many as 10 as we used to see last month). All this rain perhaps has made it harder to find food anywhere else so they all came back where they know that there is food for certain. But let's hope that the weather will improve soon so we can finally get a bit of proper warm summer weather and the bird food doesn't get washed away as soon as you put it outside!!

Today after a few days of little bird activity in the garden there was quite a substantial number of feather visitors. We finally saw quite few greenfinches on the feeding wall and the feeder as well as jays, robins (which we hadn't seen for a while) black birds, magpie, the jackdaws...still, sparrows, etc and of ourse our what now it seems permanent garden resident the very loud male chaffinch. This one is becoming more and more one of the most vocal birds I've ever seen or heard since he seems to be singing/teeting/chirping non stop, allday, which makes you wonder how a little thing like that can be that vocal and loud all day without getting tired or getting a sore throat.

Although I'm not an expert on bed behaviour, I find it fascinating that birds like other known for being intelligent animals seem to be able to learn fairly quickly where there is food, who seems to provide them with food and in the case of this particularly chaffinch how to get the food from us when there isn't any left outside. On Thursday morning he was walking on the empty feeding wall after the night's downpour had washed away what ever bird food was left from the previous day and tweeting at the top of his voice till I finally got out and put some food on the wall.

This morning he appeared on the window sill hopping and chirping loudly till my other half got out and added some more food on the wall. Every day he seems to becoming cheekier, bravier and louder. Still he is very cute and more welcome than those jackdaws although I have a soft spot for one of them, the pirate one, the one who walks and hops on one leg. Unfortunately he never seems to come alone and the others will follow and cause havoc but I guess the fact that they are not coming as often is at least some kind of improvement.

Well the past two days we had a mixed kind of weather, one minute nice warm summer sun, the next lightning, thunder and downpour...British summer I guess. It is a petty though that the summer so far has been so unpredictable no sun friendly at all...maybe it has something to do with Glanstobury and Wimbledon??

The weather had also, it seems, an affect on the birds that they are regularly visiting our garden, with the exception of course of the jackdaws who will come raining or shine......The most regular are a couple of chaffinches and in particular the male who is currently the loudest of all the birds that they are around. He could have easily have won any bird singing competition. You will always see him either on the bird feeder or on the feeding wall, eating and chirping. He is one of the bravest little birds as well as he doesn't seem to be bothered by other big or small birds around. He is not only a great singer but also a very good looking bird, one of the prettiest finches I have seen so far.

Yesterday also we saw again after a few days of disappearance the mummy blackbird coming to our garden to feed like the old days, mostly before the sudden appearance of her little chick. Which of course brought to mind fond memories of that cute bird and questions of whether is still around and if so where about. I guess this is one thing that we'll probably never find out.


Today also it looks like a more promising day with a lot of sunshine and some more bird appearances including the shy jay. Also it hasn't been so bad with the jackdaws which they are seem to have reduced in numbers. Do I dare hope? Only time will tell!

Well there goes another day trying to shoo off those pesky jackdaws from our garden. As I said before I don't mind the occasional one or two (there is one which has only one leg and I will normally let him eat some of the bird food and bread) but it is the sheer number of them that they scoop down and it looks like a scene from Hitchcock's film 'The birds' that it is the problem...Now they have also become cheekier and bolder as they don't get discouraged or scared that easily. You will shoo them off and they won't leave first time around, they will just wait for the second try and even then they will stick around on the rooftops, trees and top of garden walls and they will just look at you, quite innocent like they are trying to say 'in human terms': 'What did we do wrong?' or 'We only want to eat...'. Let's stop right now trying to anthropomorphise them and start feeling sorry for them, they are stubborn and annoying and they are scaring the little ones...

On a more lighter note, when I went to the local shop for some light shopping earlier this afternoon on my way back I looked around on the nearby rooftops and I was suprised not to see not even one jackdaw flying by or sitting on any roof. Well, my suprise was cured when I got home and looked in my garden....there were all there gulping down any seed or piece of bread left from earlier....They were having a party while I was away. I wish there was an easy away to keep them away from my garden without having to stop putting food for the smaller ones. Even the occasional magpie that comes in our garden chases them off...I will say it one more time...these pesky jackdaws.

On the positive note I saw quite a few blue teats yesterday hanging from the feeder and on the little dead tree!