One of my passions is my garden especially when spring arrives , it gives me the ideal opportunity to get the camera out and start taking photo's of the visiting wildlife and all the flowers as they begin to spring into life, its just a beautiful time and I feel so lucky to have it all around me. I have taken many photographs over the years of flora and fauna which I am looking forward to sharing on my Photoblog over the coming weeks and months.
This scruffy new blue tit fledgling landed on the water bath, he seemed happy enough when he flew off.. made me laugh
We have two regular wood pigeon's in the garden and I feel I have adopted them, I love watching them chase each other when mating and apparently they can mate every month of the year. The majority of young birds are likely to die within their first 12 months, but the record age for a ringed wild bird is over 16.It takes 17 days for an egg to hatch, and a further 30 to 34 days for the chick to fledge. As they tend to live for around ten years I expect they will be around for a while yet. I believe there are around 2.5 million pairs in the UK alone.
STOPPING FOR A DRINK
NESTING MATERIAL
JUVENILE WOOD PIGEON
The wonderful blackbird is always a welcome visitor in the garden any time of the year but especially at breeding time to be able to witness the new fledglings is always a treat. I have had two regular pairs this year which I have managed to photograph, sadly when they brought their two young into the garden to feed my camera had just gone to the repairers so I was unable to capture them feeding but it was a joy to witness. The blackbird is know to be very territorial and is likely to stay around the same nesting site for a few years. There are around 6 million breeding pairs in the UK , it takes a pair of blackbirds between 11 and 14 days to make a nest. Most of the work is done by the female it is only the female that incubates the eggs, but the male helps feed his offspring.
FEMALE BLACKBIRD
MALE BLACKBIRD
Just good friends
Food for the fledglings
The Humble House Sparrow: The sometimes overlooked house sparrow can be a little charmer in its own way, they produce that sweet little chirping sound that only the sparrow has and its a sort of comfort to know that the sparrows are still around just as I remember them while growing up as a child. We have them nesting in our roof tops every year and its with great joy to watch them rear their young and bring them to the bird feeder, they generally have two to three broods a year. They can be a feisty little bird when it comes to territory often watching them fight around the bird feeder. Sadly there population has somewhat dwindled over the years mainly due to being predated by cats soon after they fledge, hopefully the numbers will rise as long as we support them as much as we can. Below are a few captures of my regular visitors to the feeder.
FEEDING TIME
MALE HOUSE SPARROW
FEEDING TIME
Friend or Foe: The grey squirrel has a love hate relationship with many people, as for me I kind of love them more than I hate them although I have had my moments in particular last year when one decided to take up residence in our attic and it took weeks to eventually catch it and rehome somewhere else, and to make sure they don't return you have to take them to a new area at least twenty miles away so that was fun with a squirrel in the back of the car in a cage. I was surprised to learn recently that although their life span is supposed to be around ten year most only manage about three to four. The last estimated population of grey squirrel is around two million, wow mind blowing.. so where do you sit on the argument do you like or loath our native grey squirrel. Photos below are of one of my regular visitors to the garden, you have to admit they are kind of cute.
HAPPY IN THE ASH TREE
YUMMY
HAVING A SCRATCH
Wonderful series!