Garden birds and daft squirrels
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
I think this time of year may well be my favourite – long days, warm sunshine without humidity and excess heat and with pristine new foliage and plants emerging with all the summer ahead of us. I love that point, usually in mid-May, when the natural world just explodes into life. There’s often a period of warm sunshine and spring showers and that combination of light and water seems to conjure up some magic in the things that grow and we go from the hint of things about to develop to being surrounded by lush bright green foliage and an increase in bird song and insects buzzing.
I have several bird feeders in the garden and when I fill them and the clean the bird bath (just what do birds do to get the bottom of it full of grit every time I top it up?!) I make a point of standing still nearby until the birds return to them, so that they’re used to me being there and associate me with the supply of food. I decided to put this to the test by taking my camera outside one day when the area was in sunshine and hoping that they’d tolerate me taking some photos and many of the frames below are as a result.
One particular supposed ‘squirrel proof’ feeder has been in use for many years and the lid long since became dis-attached – a combination of rust and persistent efforts by the squirrels to remove it. I’d had it wired on and this necessitated unraveling the wire and replacing it tightly each time I filled it. On a couple of recent occasions, the lid was either loose or had been completely removed and I wasn’t sure how a squirrel could get it unwrapped so easily. Until I saw him in action – his technique comprised getting his nose under one edge of the lid and using brute force to lever the lid back, away from the opening.
I walked past the kitchen window the other morning and something moving outside caught my eye, but took several seconds before my brain could compute what I was seeing. This supposed ‘squirrel proof’ feeder was swinging violently and there was a mass of grey fur protruding from the top. The silly squirrel had only entered it nose first to get at the seed, which was quite low in the feeder and had seemingly got stuck. He extracted himself after a struggle and as he stayed put on the adjacent branch, I grabbed the camera, hoping that he’d find the proximity of the seeds too tempting, which he did.
He just shimmied into it until his mouth met seeds and proceeded to eat until I took pity on him and took him some seed of his own out. He again had a heck of a job backing out of it and then sat on the branch above, not three feet from me, looking at me as though everyone tackled their breakfast in the same way, so what was I laughing at. I love how squished his ears are and I wonder where his front legs are, as he’s only seemingly hanging on by his back legs. I’ll need to wire the lid on especially tight, as I don’t want to be responsible for him getting stuck in there.
Gallery:
You can click on any of the photographs to see a larger version and then run through them in sequence. There are captions to accompany each photograph.
It’s quite a miracle that there’s no camera shake in this image as I was laughing very hard.
We have a pair of nuthatches who are seen regularly on both feeders and the bird tables.
One of my female bullfinches, we currently have two pairs who visit us daily.
We have a constant stream of visiting goldfinches, which noisily squabble over the feeders, even though there’s plenty to go around.
All of my wren photos are ‘making the best of a bad job’ as they’re small, move fast and are an almost impossible target.
House sparrows are not as prolific as you might think, being in decline over recent years.
We have a pair of nuthatches in the garden and we see them many times a day and are less timid than other species.
One of my pair of resident nuthatches. I just caught this series of photographs as we returned home in the car and it was on the wall adjacent to where we park.
A great tit working on a sunflower seed just picked up from the feeders.
It looks like this wren was stood still all day, where in reality it flashed through the scene in about 2 seconds.
The nuthatch was intently watching something, then hopped down and snagged some creepy crawlies in the wall below.
The young sparrows often settle in the honeysuckle adjacent to our outside table, seemingly unconcerned by our proximity.
One of several young sparrows that flit about the garden, even when we’re sitting out there for a meal.
I’ve learnt to identify particular sparrows as each has their favourite perches and route through the garden.
This entire blossom head is about 12mm in diameter, so I was astonished to see how hairy it was when seen much larger than life in a photograph.
What could be lovelier on an early summer evening than listening to a babbling brook and bird song.
