C had an extra birthday present last week. I was working up here and heard what I was pretty sure were long-tailed tits, so I went down to see if I could see any. I saw two in the trees, but then had to come in to make dinner. As he stood and watched he saw four of them in the mahonia - he was so pleased.
He'd been talking about seeing a wren - I was never 100% sure that it wasn't a young dunnock, but look here - I'm pretty sure this is a little wren. Had to take the picture through the spare bedroom window - lucky I cleaned it recently.
This is definitely a dunnock - young and mother. The juvenile is still getting fed a bit, although he's well able to forage for himself.
For all the many times I see a cormorant flying up the river, or swimming and diving, last week was only the second time I've seen one standing on some of the junk in the river and grooming. And the first time it was just straightforward grooming, not the wing-drying, which I've only ever seen along the cliffs.
My sister is due to stay over again this week. I'll be glad if she can give me a quick video-editing guide so that at least the program makes sense. I like the way YouTube lets me replace a soundtrack that's pretty much just traffic noise with music, but not that it then gives you non-optional advertising...
The SCS challenge this week was a scavenger hunt - the objects to find were a leaf, a stone, a shell, a feather and a bottle or a can. Well - not living by a beach a shell proved problematical. I believe that it's been a bad year for slugs and snails - a good year for gardeners. (On the same note I also heard that there are fewer insects, which is why many bird feeders have seen more juvenile activity than would be usual).
It was also hard to find a stone of any interest - I nearly had to "scavenge" one from the windowsill.
Leaves afloat - note the seaweed too!
A robin's feather I found in the back porch
Snail on the wall
Not local - I spotted this beside the tram tracks near work
Message in a bottle
It's WAY too early for the rowan trees to be turning.
I found the robin feather around the time that Scarface got his scar, so I assumed it was after a fight between him and No-tail. Sadly I haven't seen Scarface for the last week or more. Mrs Robin is feeding her brood, though. They've fledged - she's flying off in all directions with her food for them instead of always in the same direction across the garden and over the wall, and I can hear that funny little kissing noise coming from the hedge when she's feeding them. Now she is certainly managing to find insects. She had a whole beakful of something too small to identify when I got home from work today. It still didn't stop her from flying straight to the back door the instant I opened it, and trying to fit a couple of mealworms in as well.
(This is the post I thought I made during the week, but it went AWOL. I think what happened is I originally posted it accidentally when I was copying the video link, so I quickly saved it as draft. But I think when I then posted it, it posted for the day I'd done it accidentally...another lesson learned. I could see a lot of fish in the river yesterday too, but they were on the far side to where I was walking, and as I was going to get the free paper and then to a little Polish shop for fresh yeast (they were out of it), I didn't have time to cross over and walk back).
Normally I see the cormorant either diving and swimming, or they appear in flight barrelling up the river. A rare treat to watch it taking off twice in the last few days. I spotted some big mullet in the river last week too.
These ducks were just gently drifting in the morning sunshine - they rather reminded me of all the locals swimming in Astros last year - just gently floating in the water and gossiping away.
No-Tail's tail has grown again, but it's still quite easy to tell him apart from Scarface. He's still trying to muscle in on the territory - when he's around I hear a good bit of territorial chirping. But he's not one to come close to the house, whereas Scarface and partner are both happy to come up to the door, and even a bit further. I'm pretty sure they have another brood - I saw one of them deposit a faecal sac on a branch the other day, and they're flying off with food again, which wasn't the case for a while after the last little ones were fledged.
Casing the joint
Peanuts??
Nah, this looks better!
This IS better!!
Back to the nest with the booty
Not sure what happened to the post I thought I made yesterday, I'll just try posting it again tomorrow...
The robin formerly known as No-Tail, in the early morning sun. I'm not sure if he's fatter just because he's only feeding himself, or if he's puffed up for territorial display - or both.
As promised, coot videos. Not one, even, but two.
It was fascinating watching the coot reorganising the nest. At first I wondered if it was for another clutch of eggs, because the chicks currently on the lake must be at least a month old now, more like 6 weeks. But when you see the chicks walking around the nest in the second video, there certainly couldn't have been any eggs in there. I don't know if the chicks go on living there for a while as a safe place - I haven't been able to find much information. And looking at the lengths of the stems, she must dive quite far down towards the base of the lily to nip them off.
Anyway - after the first video ended the coot swam over to the little island in the centre of the lake, and after rooting around a bit she came out with an old leaf in her mouth, and started swimming to where the young ones were. I didn't quite see if she passed the leaf to another adult as in a baton relay, I almost think that is what I saw, but maybe the two just crossed paths. Whatever, the leaf got given to one of the young ones who seemed to sort of nibble at it and then drop it. And then, as in the second clip, he swims back to the nest collecting his own contributory twig along the way.
Lovely as the bird sounds are, there was almost nothing but wind noise on the first video, so I've replaced it with music - learning all the time!
