A Sparrowhawk Visits

I woke up a few days ago and opened the curtain to see whether Pauline's good weather luck was holding. The sky was overcast. It was just after 5am so the light was poor. Then just outside my bedroom window I saw a bird: a female sparrow hawk waiting for her breakfast. Ironically I had put my cameras in the car ready for the off in the morning so had to go and retrieve one.

At 5am waiting for breakfast to emerge

This was the first time I'd seen a sparrow hawk so close and not actually in flight although one did attempt unsuccessfully to take a sparrow from the bird table some years ago and crashed into the flowers just outside the kitchen window. This evening I looked up as I was finishing dinner and there she was again sitting on the fencepost at the corner of the garden. This time the light was better but I had to take the photo through a rain-covered kitchen window. 

Here's looking at you

After a while I decided to be brave and open the back door and try again. She looked directly at me and decided that I was no immediate threat so I managed a shot or two before she flew off to seek supper over in the trees where the starlings were roosting for the night. They were less sanguine about her presence and immediately took to the sky. I had no idea there were so many starlings roosting so close to me.

After a short while she returned. 

Sitting patiently

When I went into the garden today I saw that there were lots of pigeon's feather scattered around so I assume that she has taken a pigeon whilst I've been away and is now after a second one. She certainly looks well fed even though she is a rather tatty specimen. I wonder if it was this pigeon that is no more:

Or this one?

Surely not this one?

I Go Away For Ten Days And.....

When I get back:

All the birds have gone.  Pat's been feeding them in my absence but there was food left in the feeders this morning and there has been a solitary sparrow - a young male I think - visiting on and off and one solitary outcast rock pigeon.  It (for I know not whether it's a he or a she) has been moping around the base of the feeders all day and didn't even bother to fly off when I went outside the Study door.  Neither did the sparrow but that's not so unusual.  The pigeon is a different colour to all the others and often mopes around here on his own.  Given that he sleeps on the ground with his head tucked under his wing I'm surprised he's lasted as long as he has without a cat getting him.  I've just photographed him and realised that he is probably a racing pigeon and is either lost or has absconded.  He has two rings on his left leg.  That would also explain why he is not afraid of me when all the other pigeons fly off if I as much as raise my coffee to my mouth.

I have four, yes four, loads for the washing machine.  This means that I have enough ironing to last the qualifying and the race of the Japanese Grand Prix:

The weather has turned to winter.  It's cold and wet and windy.  In fact down in the Bay some men who went out in a boat this afternoon had considerable difficulty getting it back on to the bogey to get it out of the water.

 

A Conundrum

A few evening’s ago when a friend and I were having dinner I looked up to see a rock pigeon on a bird feeder.  I raised my arm and waved.  Despite the distance the pigeons are usually so aware of any movement that they fly off.  One did.  The rest followed suit.  Except for the one on the top of the feeder.  Puzzled, I went to see why.  I opened the study door and walked out.  The pigeon didn’t flinch.  That’s unheard of.  Then I realised that what I had thought was something in his beak was, in fact his beak.  And here’s the rub.  I would happily do away with the pigeons even though I abhor killing any creature (except wasps!) but I suddenly felt desperately sorry for this bird who was, presumably, beyond caring because, with a beak as damaged as that, she could not be far away from death.  Leastways I assume that to be the case.

Rock Pigeons

I'm not sure whether I'm becoming obsessed with the Rock Pigeon population explosion or they are, en masse, becoming obsessed with my house and garden. Whichever the 26 which are visible in front of my study window are becoming just too much of a nuisance for their own good. They are not doing my roof much good either and they keep dropping 'things' whatever they may be (they rattle around on the roof in the wind) onto the Study roof. My next step is to use different and non-pigeon friendly (it doesn't have wheat or corn) bird food. I've ordered it. I await the results but my feeling is that very little is likely to discourage these hoovers.

A Good Day For Birds

I am really missing the Olympus at the moment.  Yesterday and today I have had the best opportunities ever to get some close shots of a Rock Pippit, a Meadow Pippet, a Robin and  Buzzard.  I was in the garden in full sun yesterday when three Rock Pippits came to join me.  Two stayed a respectable distance but the other was curious and came within two metres of me.  All the time he was looking at me and when he got really close he popped his head on one side and gave a few quiet cheeps as though talking to me.  It was a magical moment and it lasted for about 10 minutes.  I have to admit that by that time I was getting cold and because my eyes were watering in the wind I had to be careful wiping them but the movement didn't seem to frighten him.

The Meadow Pippits have been looking for food around the Study this morning in perfect light.

Today a Robin decided that I was an interesting prospect whilst I was unloading some wood from the car's roof rack.  Robins are naturally more companionable with humans anyway but this one was quite unconcerned.  The odd thing is that it's only recently that I've seen a Robin in the garden here so much.

My friendly Pigeon continues to regard me as his pal.  If I go outside and all the other Pigeons fly away he simply stays and chats.  He'll walk up to about a metre and a half from me as he gets more used to me.  On the whole he's now started coming when the other Pigeons are not here but they seem unconcerned with him.  He seems to be accepted as a Pigeon but not quite 'one of the boys/girls'.

But the real treat was seeing a Buzzard just riding the updraught above the water's edge as I drove into town.  I was within 5 metres of him.  I'm not sure what he'd have done if I'd stopped but I'd probably have got a few photos before he's floated off.  He was certainly unconcerned with cars passing with a few metres of him.

And my Sparrows are back home in force.

The Garden's Birds

A few days ago Pat and I saw a Merlin chasing a small bird into the hedging nearby.  Then I saw a Sparrowhawk chasing a pigeon (I think it was a pigeon) across the garden.  Yesterday I saw all the usual daily birds plus a Wren, two types of Pipets, a young Wheatear (I'm sure she's been around here since she fledged) and a Robin (who was too quick to be caught on camera)

Meadow Pippit

Young Sparrow who's trying to impress - 9 months early

Fuzzy Wren

Female Wheatear

I'm off to The Wedding on the lunchtime ferry and I'll be away for a while but hopefully I'll have plenty of blogging opportunities once the weekend is over.

Problems With Pests

Last year I got a bit obsessed with the pigeons which deposit so much poo all over my roof and dominate the garden. This year the number is about 30 and it's becoming a serious problem. Last night when I went up the ladder to clear the Study roof (not having done so for about 2 weeks) I was astonished, not just at the amount of poo there was up there but also by the difficulty I had removing it. There are two sorts. That which is like small pellets and rolls around in the wind just causing considerable irritation. Then there is the sort that sticks like cement to the polycarbonate. I couldn't reach it all with a broom so I will have to go up onto the roof and attack it from that angle. Of course the stuff which is stuck to the polycarbonate will only come off with the power washer so I'll have to lug that up the ladder and and across the roof. What a chore.

I decided this morning that something would have to be done. So I Googled the problem. The first site I looked at looked promising: Jones and Son, Pigeon Spike Manufacturers. So I'm obviously not the only one with the problem!

What I just loved about their website - and that which prompted this posting - was the statement that "You can ask us a bird spike question here, we will get back to you within two hours, test us. If we fail we will send you a large bar of chocolate."

An Early Evening Ramble

I’ve spent the day sorting my computer files.  How exciting is that?  It’s been a fairly dry day and we were promised rain by late afternoon.  As I write this first sentence it’s 1730 (5.30 pm – I say that because I know that there are very considerable differences between countries as to how we talk about time)  the sun has just come out but if I look out of the house to the West and North the clouds don’t give me confidence that the sun will last.  Below the house near the shore a couple are just walking.  They are tourists.  How can I tell?  He has an umbrella in his hand.  No local would carry an umbrella.  Rain rarely comes without enough wind to render one useless.

I feel particularly sad this evening because I had a call from a former lecturer from Uni who became a friend and with whom I am still in touch.  He is having chemo for cancer.  A neighbour in Blogland has been told that she has an an intra-cranial mass.  Someone closer has been given similarly bad news.  A friend in New Zealand has just had an operation and finished radio-therapy.  I could go on.  I would usually be inclined to repeat the Gaelic saying that old age doesn’t come alone but even my former Uni lecturer isn’t much older than I am.  I could never understand survivors of a disaster who said they felt guilty for surviving.  This week I’ve had a similar feeling knowing that the cancer I carried for 12 years seems to have been seen off.

On a more mundane level some hens from about 100 yards away raided the garden this morning.  Cute they may look but the devastation that hens can wreak on a garden is not funny.  When I went outside I was not impressed by the fact that the cockerel ran away followed by the hen leaving the chicks to fend for themselves – they ran off in the opposite direction!

A neighbour’s cat decided to try and get a pigeon.  He wasn’t successful.

    

The new mis-fueling device is a lovely shade of pink.  Even without having to apply the correct nozzle before the cap can be removed one is unlikely to forget given its colour!

A particularly bright Greenfinch visited the feeders this afternoon.

And there were plenty of people down in the Bay including a wind-surfer.  I can’t recall seeing that particular sport in the Bay before.

And now to decide what to have for dinner.

Requiescat in Pace - Again

I'm sad to announce that my Pigeon pal died this morning.  Perhaps he wasn't so tame perhaps he was just so unwell that he couldn't be bothered flying off.  Perhaps he thought I could make him well again.  Do Pigeons think to the point of reasoning?  Anyway just before lunch I went to put up the new bird table I made yesterday and there he was outside my Study.  There was no sign of injury of any sort and he'd not been dead very long.  I say that not because I have any special knowledge of the period at which rigor mortis sets in but because I saw him feeding earlier on in the morning.  So I've made a note of his ring number and I'll see where racing pigeons are registered and let them know.  I don't like Pigeons in general but I'd grown quite attached to this one.

The Birds Are Returning

In the week I spent in the garden the Skylark was singing away merrily and the usual suspects like the Sparrows and Starlings were busy fattening themselves up for the coming breeding season on the food on the bird table. I saw a Great Skua (known locally as Bonxies) so they may be plentiful again this year. The Greenfinches are more plentiful this year than they were last year too. It's strange how some years there are many Greenfinches in the garden and some there are few. This is obviously going to be a 'many' year and they are possibly outnumbering the Sparrows at the moment. In my experience, however, they have fewer clutches than the Sparrows are outnumbered by the end of the breeding season.

Plenty of Robins this year

Not the best Goldfinch picture but the best this spring so far 

This is not a bird but a cat trying to catch a pigeon. They taunt it.

A Wheatear showing its wonderful telltale flash. Shame about the fence.

Not a particularly common bird in the garden the Blackbird appreciated the results of the grass being scarified  

As sis this selection: an unusual sight on the grass in my garden

Wheatear 

The Starlings are noisy and quarrelsome and the bully-boys of the bird table but beautiful nevertheless