Maybe you did not know, but scarecrows used to be just that, real crows to scare off crows and other unwanted, opportunistic scavengers. This is how some farmers still do it in France, however cruel, unethical and non-pc it may seem to some people. (Don’t worry,they shoot them first.)
And here is the evidence.
What? you say.
You know that I have a soft spot for the little birds in general, and in my garden in particular, since I attract them with food in order to enjoy watching them and taking photographs of them. In my previous post on Monday I outsmarted the cats, but today my brain short-circuited, it did not perform any better than a lump of jelly.
Alerted by commotion in the garden I looked out from the kitchen window and saw a bird of prey on top of a struggling woodpecker. What did I do? I rushed upstairs for my camera, which had the short standard lens on. I thought there would not be time enough to switch to the 300 mm lens. So I took two pictures from an upstairs window. And here comes the real brain meltdown. Since I saw that the victim was still alive and kicking, literally, I ran down to scare the predator off, hoping it would leave the poor juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker alone on the grass.
When I had come out through the kitchen door on the side, I took only two steps before the Sparrowhawk took off with its load firmly in its grip. (Here ought to follow a long sequence of very offensive words, but I have edited them out before having written them.)
Lessons learnt:
1) Always keep the 300 mm lens on when in house.
2) Preferably keep camera on same floor as oneself.
3) If you think you are a good photographer, think again!
I should of course calmly have taken the 30 seconds it takes to switch lenses, then positioned myself in a suitable window, and I should have put the camera in continuous shooting mode in order to get as many pictures as possible of this rare occasion, a Sparrowhawk tearing its victim apart. I would have had images of strings of bloody flesh being pulled by a natural-born killer. I had a fantastic opportunity to catch a real wildlife situation in my own garden, but my heart took over. How stupid can one get? Keeping cats out is one thing, but you cannot do anything about birds of prey.
Instead I had to resort to looking at the two blurry pictures, consult the bird book to confirm it was a female Sparrowhawk and then curse myself for being so soft-hearted. D’oh!
Killer instinct, but no hunger! Why is it that cats chase birds only to catch and kill, but not eat? I know it is an instinct, they are programmed to do it, but why is the instinct still there when they have no other natural reason to kill? Why kill and not eat? You would have thought that evolution (or is that devolution?) would link those two urges, to eat and kill. Both or none, but that seems not to be the case.
My regular readers know that I feed birds in our garden and have had problems before with killer cats. These days I keep the shrub next to the feeders clear nearest the ground not to give any predators anywhere to hide. But cats are lightning quick when it comes to killing. Birds feeding off the ground are easy prey.
An incident the other week made me take another security step. I was upstairs when I heard a terrifying scream from the garden; I rushed to a window only to see the one we call “Socks”, because of its white paws, carry away a Great Spotted Woodpecker!
I was down in the garden in a flash, ran after the cat, with the poor bird in its jaws, into the copse behind the garden, only to hear the heart-breaking screaming continue for what seemed an eternity, until it suddenly stopped.
The following day I went to a garden centre and bought some of those green-plastic-coated metal sticks and some wire. I made my own cat (de)fence, with the intention of at least slowing down the furry felines enough for the innocent little birdies to take off and save their lives.
It seems to be working, and the wonderful twist on the story is that the birds now have even more places to sit while they are waiting for a chance to have a nourishing meal.
I feel much better about myself now that I have turned a death trap into a bird sanctuary.
This beautiful juvenile great spotted woodpecker was just sitting there tucked into the foliage waiting for the parent to provide some food. It is leaning in sync with the leaves on both sides as if it was part of the vegetation, had it not been for the strong colours.
Just a quick post about something that happened this afternoon.
I heard a terrible commotion from the dense hedge at the bottom of the garden. Birds were shrieking in the nearby trees, and there seemed to be some movement in the hedge. First I thought there was some sort of fight taking place, but when I went down to investigate I found this young jackdaw on a weak and wobbly branch. It did not fly off, just moved further away from me. I did a quick tour of the web and found out about this bird. I believe it had just left the nest (in one of the tall trees above) and more or less fallen down into the hedge. Since it was not quite ready to fly just yet, it had to stay there while the parents were calling from all around. And they are loud!
The younger they are, the bluer the eyes. Are they not beautiful?
As you could see in a previous post, a male adult was slaving away trying to keep up with the offspring’s food demands. The day after I saw a female Great Spotted Woodpecker doing the same with her young one. It was a different individual, because the red patch on the head did not look the same.
But this mother had also had enough of it, or rather, thought it appropriate to encourage the youngster to start finding its own food. She bullied it off the branch they both were sitting on, trying to chase it away, so it ended up hanging upside down by its sharp talons for a long while, not knowing what to do.
This is often how you can tell the youngest ones apart from the adults, this “lost” behaviour. They can be spotted sitting still for long periods of time, looking bewildered, trying to take it all in. They seem to be thinking hard about what to do next. I can fly, so I must be a bird, but what am I supposed to do all day? I can eat, drink and fly, but then what?
They can look totally lost, but also fluffy and dead cute! Like these young ones, a blue tit and a willow warbler.
Since we got back from holiday I have seen many birds feeding their young. The parent normally comes to my feeding station and then flies off with its beak full of food to the impatient young bird, sometimes a very short distance away.
I have seen the usual great tits and blue tits caring for their offspring, but also nuthatches and even tree creepers, who normally prefer to stay down the bottom of the garden. But the best spectacle on offer are the woodpeckers.
You are often alerted to what is going on by the calling of the hungry youngster. Its helpless and clumsy behaviour reveals its youth. It is very common that the young bird is as big or bigger than the parent, but the colours on the woodpecker’s head gives it away. The adult male has got a red patch at the back of the head and a juvenile at the front or all over the head. The female’s head is all black. The adult in the sequence below was working his little cotton socks off to satisfy the culinary needs of his offspring. Recognise yourself anybody?
(Photos taken through a bedroom window with a heavy 300 mm handheld lens!)
I am puzzled by a garden mystery. Every time we leave to go on holiday, all the birds who frequent my little feeding station have to fend for themselves once the feeders are empty and the strings with empty green plastic nets are fluttering in the wind.
Depending on how long we have been away, it takes a little while before they are back in numbers. After a 17-day Easter break I expected the return of my feathered friends to begin in earnest after three or four days. But still three weeks after our return there are not that many birds around the food despite the abundance and variety on offer. The spotted woodpeckers come frequently to feast on the fatty balls with seeds in them, the nuthatches swoop down on the nut containers like greased lightning and the blackbirds, who are building a nest in the nearest cherry laurel, are almost residential.
The greenfinches, normally the dominant species, turn up every now and then, but only in small numbers. I have seen great tits and blue tits on the odd occasion. There are normally dozens of birds. Where have they all gone?
I have been through several theories about their unexpected absence:
- Is there something wrong with the food? Hardly, because visiting birds seem to like it.
- Has there been a bird epidemic of some sort? Maybe they have perished for medical reasons? I have no way of finding out.
- Have the many predatory domestic cats caught them? Neighbours’ cats are constantly on the prowl, hiding in the shrubbery to jump on the gullible little birds, but I have not seen any evidence of any mass slaughter like a couple of years ago when I found fifteen carcasses under and around the nearest shrub. Then again, they might of course have run off with them.
- Then there are the squirrels, who normally feed side by side with the birds, but they do squirt a lot to mark their territory (I believe). Does that contain a bird-repelling chemical? They have always squirted, so why now? I don’t think I can blame the squirrels.
- Are they all busy reproducing, nesting or feeding young ones with proper baby food like maggots, worms and juicy, flying insects? Possibly, but surely at least one of the parents would occasionally be free to come to the open bar for a well-deserved, healthy snack?
- So, I have only one theory left; they do not like me anymore. They are finally protesting against the inconsistent supply of that extra nutrition they have come to demand. Please come back, I even promise to top up the water at least twice a day!
It was not particularly warm, just 8 degrees, but the sky was clear, and the sun was about to set, so those glowing sun rays painted trees in intense colours which were reflected in the water. I have cropped some images, sharpened them and made them slightly brighter, but I have not increased the colour at all. I find nature’s own colour saturation quite impressive.
Nature looks fairly pale and even bleak at the moment, although snowdrops and other garden flowers have adorned the flower beds for many days now. On a walk through the forest just before sunset the other day I took a few images just out of habit. What might look like dormant or dead vegetation can actually make quite a decent photograph with its subdued and understated colours, like in this picture of some naked birches and dead bracken. Almost ghostly beauty.
This morning the sun was out and I took the opportunity to practise with my new long lens. Sadly my feeders are on the north side of the house, which is not ideal for photographing the poor little things, but the sun shines on the very top of some shrubs and cut-off trees nearby which serve as a waiting area for the birds where they scan the surroundings before moving in on the food. Here is one of the regular customers, a greenfinch, surveying the scene.
One of the regular winter guests is the brambling (Swedish: bergfink), who otherwise breeds in Scandinavia and Russia. It has got rather striking colours and marking.
I use my tripod for bird photography, in particular with this new lens without built-in anti-shake, but it is still a challenge to get the focus right when the little so-and-so keeps moving all the time!
All of a sudden we had the first snow, on the last day of November, and then much more today.
Since it got cold I have noticed the birds having a greater appetite. Add snow to that and they start getting more aggressive, in particular the Greenfinches.
The Great Tit had to wait for its turn. But this Blue Tit was luckier, the female Spotted Woodpecker had her own food supply. Is that the same Great Tit waiting up there?
Some flowers had not even had time to fall off the shrubs before the snow settled.
As I was washing up I spotted this unlucky creature on the lawn, a magpie without tail feathers looking rather sad. One can only speculate how it had lost its rudder like that. Those feathers must be there for a very good reason, the design has been perfected over generations, so how would it cope I wondered.
But all of a sudden it took off and headed for the neighbours' garden. So, yes, it could fly, but I wonder about the landing. Maybe it crashed and rolled over. I will never know. (It is somewhere in the middle, slightly blurred.)
Not only do I keep pen and paper near me or on me for when some writing ideas come up, but this time of year there is a lot going on in the garden, so my camera is never far away either.
When I wake up in the morning I often hear how young birds are calling for more food, now! They congregate by the feeders under our bedroom window. Since we are in mid June now, all fledglings have left their nests and ventured out into the big unknown, and it is fascinating and rather sweet to see how some of them are still trying to understand how to get to the food. They can see others eating from the feeders and those fatty balls full of yummy seeds.
This young greenfinch could not figure out how to approach and land safely to get some food, but ended up on the ground looking slightly bewildered.
This juvenile great tit is getting some help though.
Not only birds are hungry but also this female squirrel is in need of replenishing her energy levels. She is pretty agile and acrobatic!
When the great spotted woodpeckers fly in, the crowd of smaller birds disperse in a flash, and you cannot avoid hearing the young ones calling for food. In these pictures a male adult is feeding a young one.
Since I started supplying water I have also realised that birds do not only have a bath every now and then, but most of all how often they need to drink, and it is not only birds who come to drink. I have many times seen birds repeatedly visiting the water bowls between sessions on the feeder perch. When everyone else has gone to bed the hedgehogs appear.
No wonder I always keep both camera and tripod close at hand. Like yesterday when a jay turned up all of a sudden. I have never before seen one in the garden, only in the woods.
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