My Garden

I will try, despite my previous post, to write about animal life in the garden. Thanks to some encouraging comments I have decided to blog about all the topics I mentioned, and I take the easiest option to begin with.

I never thought that I would turn into somebody being teased by his wife for observing and learning about the birds and other animals who visit our garden. Since we moved here over six years ago and I started feeding the birds, I have spotted approximately 30 different species. There have been everything from one-offs like a sparrow hawk to the ever-present greenfinches. Since our garden backs onto a copse, once part of a large mixed forest, we get a great variety of birds.

Before we moved here I had never knowingly seen a greenfinch, but I know them very well by now. One immediately noticeable characteristic is the aggression they show, in particular towards each other. I have blogged about this before, but they never cease to fascinate me.

They are also the only species who stay on the feeder peg and keep munching away at the seeds. Others, like the great tits, long-tailed tits, blue tits, crested tits, black caps, nuthatches and even robins, pick their seed and fly off to a nearby branch and start trying to crack the seed open.

Some other birds are happy to patrol the ground under the feeders to look for seeds discarded by other birds with a much more acquired taste. So there is room for everyone.

As soon as I see a new bird I try to photograph it and identify it using my European bird book. In doing so I have learnt a lot over the years, their names in both English and Swedish and also something about their habits.

I have in the past blogged about sunbathing birds (getting quite a few search hits), but since I have introduced water I have seen many birds both drinking and taking a refreshing bath.

I even saw a jackdaw clumsily landing to get a drink.

 

Then of course there are the red squirrels, very agile, quick like lightning and rather unafraid. I have posted many times before with squirrels in the leading parts. Sometimes you see them at their playful best, chasing each other up an down and round our big conifer trunk trying to outwit each other. The other week I managed to catch some of them in full flight across the lawn. Rather special don't you think?