FOURTEEN BIRDS AND A SQUIRREL March 22nd

At last the weather has improved. The cold wind and  rain has ceased  and it is a pleasant 15 degrees outside, warm enough to be able to sit outside and enjoy nature from my balcony whilst having my lunch and enjoying a glass of white wine. Spring is here at last, and buds are appearing on the trees, pretty flowers are blooming, and birds are filling the air with their song, and it's a wonderful feeling when our senses are in tune with nature, and it feels good to be alive. These are a few photos I took this week.

The Blue Tits are regulars

Here, we are looking at each other.

A playful pose, only minutes before the squirrel had been playing with another squirrel, and they were chasing each other up and down the tree.

The buds are getting as big as the Crested Tit.

The Crested Tit is another regular.

It seems that every time I look out of the window, the Robin is there.

The Robin eats from this box but prefers to eat from the tiled floor, so I always scatter some crumbs on the ground just for the Robin.

I never see the female Blackcap, but the male comes every day to eat at this feeder and sometimes from the tiled floor. 

His song is particularly pleasing.

My adorable Coaltits, so small and charming.

The Blackbird is never far away..

This is a Serin, but unfortunately it's out of focus, without detail and a very poor image, but it's here because it's a bird I hardly ever see so I'm also sharing it with you.

The Greenfinch eat copiously of the sunflower seeds.

This Hoopoe was perched on one of the beams of my lookout.

When it moved further along the beam, I got a slightly better shot.

The Great-tit

Starlings.

The Firecrest has become a regular, I was having my lunch outside when I captured these images, and it never noticed I was there, of course I had to move slowly and quietly to get these shots, and I was sitting at the far end of the balcony.

This concludes my post for this week. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed seeing and photographing birds on, and from my balcony. Have a great weekend.

More Eurasian Jays

When the deciduous trees lose their leaves and become dormant, I have a greater opportunity of seeing the shy Eurasian Jay. This winter I have focused my attention  more on Jays than any other bird. These are a few of my photographs. No more words necessary.

THE GREYLAG GOOSE

We are experiencing torrential rain and cold blustery winds. Last night my watering can which had water inside, and a long handled brush and pan, were blown from one side of my balcony to the other, and the branch that held one of my hanging feeders snapped and to my dismay I couldn't find the metal feeder anywhere on my balcony  so eventually when the rainstorm became less intense I went outside and found it on the ground covered in soggy soil. I went to find my trusty grabber and managed to dislodge it from where it had fallen in the middle of a Camellia bush. I was so pleased to find it in tact, as over the years it's the only one that has stood the test of time, except for the base, which a squirrel managed to unscrew from both sides where it was held in place, and ran away with it. I heard a noisy commotion outside my small bedroom window, and could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the squirrel with the base in it's mouth. then it scampered away over the roof. After trying several lids from my jars and tins of face cream, I discovered that the lid of a small Nivea tin fitted perfectly, and my daughter in law Paula who likes fixing things went to my late husband's workshop and found the tools with which to punch four holes around the sides and the wire to hold it in place.

This is the feeder with the original base.

This is my feeder now.

I always bang on the window when I see the squirrels at the feeder

On Tuesdays my daughter Eva comes for lunch, and if the weather is good we go for a drive. It had just stopped raining, so after lunch we set off without any particular destination in mind, but it didn't matter as it's always nice to be with my daughter anywhere. As Eva drove down the road we suddenly saw a fox near the gate of a nearby house, so we stopped and I got out of the car to take photos. It soon became apparent however that it was not a live fox but a taxidermized fox. The lady of the house saw our interest in the fox, and told us it was twenty three years old, and she had put it outside for an airing.

We decided to stay close to home, in case it started raining again, and went to the park in the centre of town where we saw various pigeons.

Eva spotted the sleeping pigeons before I did.

I photographed them individually for a closer look.

This pigeon looked so cosy in the niche it had found.

The park is really small. You can walk through it in any direction in just five minutes. There were three geese by the pond, two Greylag geese and one Domestic goose. I took several photos of the Greylag geese to share, and just three of the white Domestic goose. 

 

The only birds we saw apart from the pigeons were blackbirds, plus sparrows, and finches but the blackbirds I can capture at home, and the sparrows and finches were difficult to capture as they were in the bushes and trees.

The scientific name for the Greylag goose is anser anser

We were standing on the bridge over the pond, looking down at the geese, so to get a better perspective, I decided just to make portraits.

We used to have a couple of Greylag geese on the farm, as guard geese, to sound the alert by it's loud crackling noise if a fox was raiding the hen coop.

With the help of a magnifying glass I could see that the number was 3 4 7.

The Domestic goose, anser anser domestic.

Not a flattering portrait. :=)

Sticking your tongue out is rude, but you are forgiven because of your beautiful eyes.

A  sleeping Greylag goose

One more pigeon capture taken in the park and then we both felt peckish so as our favourite confectioners was closed, we went to another which we had become patrons of and had tea, and the cakes were really delicious. I then purchased some Parma ham and a freshly baked croissant for my dinner. Happy Days!