Eats plants
I recently got a large bird-feeding house with a high capacity because I was having to refill the tube feeders so frequently I thought this would last longer. However a magpie with a discerning palate has discovered he can flick through the seed picking out the bits he likes. He empties it in less than… Continue reading The magpie and Rocket
I felt bad recently because when I replaced my bird feeders with ones that had a protective cage to keep pigeons away I realised it would also prevent blackbirds from accessing the food. Blackbirds are ground feeders but I did see them occasionally use the hanging feeder. I remember it because there were two of… Continue reading Clever crow stealing peanuts
The magpies and slugs now eat the food I leave out for the hedgehogs. I know because I leave the camera out on it overnight and there's very little activity from anything else. Something that did surprise me is how popular a bowl of water is. I was going to throw away a chipped pasta… Continue reading Feeding and bathing the birds
A white pigeon has started visiting the bird feeders in our backyard. I've never seen one before. I wonder if it's an escaped pet? Or maybe one of many released white pigeons at someone's wedding? These are not the best photos because I took them through glass and it seems I need to clean the… Continue reading White pigeon
The herring gull nesting in the chimney pots on our roof is now a parent as yesterday I spotted a chick. It's hard to see in this photo so I've annotated around it with a red box. I don't always see it as it's behind the metal chimney but sometimes it peers out the side… Continue reading Herring gull chick
On the pavement outside our house is a tiny bit of dirt beneath a lone tree. The council usually spray the pavement and after years of losing plants this way I now have a sign there. I was delighted today to find two bees feeding from this tiny garden. You can see one of the… Continue reading Bees, gulls and Grenfell fire
I baked another dud sourdough loaf which I threw onto the back lawn. A colony of gulls swooped in and demolished it all in less than a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye2iNNqc42M Before the gulls arrived some local birds had a go. I got this one brave bird feasting right in front of Victoria our cat. I'm not… Continue reading Gull dinner party
The cold-blooded killer brought a bird inside last week. I managed to rescue the bird and it flew away, seemingly unscathed, but it left behind a pile of feathers which it surely needed in the cold spell we had. I felt very guilty and bought some bird food which I put outside on a high… Continue reading Protecting birds from the cat
Cats are so easy. They come fully toilet-trained, don't need to be taken for walks, don't bark, and don't require entertaining. It has been a long time since I had a cat and after 14 years of my dogs, Freud and Zeki, I had forgotten what is was like. I got Freud and Zeki as… Continue reading Pets and toilet training
The bird feeder in our backyard fell apart so we replaced it with one of those feeders that sticks to the outside of your window. They're made in the UK by Meripac. I stuck it on the window yesterday and within hours there were birds there. Here's a picture of it with three birds (the… Continue reading A bird feeder and 50% off eating out
I went to the allotment today to assemble a small cage I purchased to keep the pigeons off the vegetables. I bought what I thought was an easy click-together frame but when I pulled it out I discovered screws and I hadn't taken a screwdriver with me. Who carries a screwdriver around with them? I… Continue reading Frank Spencer at the allotments
We're in the paper this morning. I'm still miserable about this. We used to hear bird song from our bedroom but that is no more. All we can hear now is the heavy machinery on the street. I spoke to one of my neighbour's this morning who said she cried all day yesterday too. She… Continue reading Bird song no more
A little part of me grieves whenever someone chops down a tree and this very nearly happened today. This morning some workmen appeared on our street to chop down several beautiful old beech trees. We did not receive any warning of this other than a street sign which appeared about a week ago to say there'd be roadworks… Continue reading Should I chain myself to a tree?
We've just returned from a very enjoyable departmental party at Ben's work. The pure maths department is very small so it was a small and friendly gathering. There were some other kids there and they paired up with our kids and spent the time tearing about the place and burning off energy. We cycled there and home… Continue reading Bicycles, birds, and mathematicians
Dad came with us to the Shetland Islands and took much nicer photos of the puffins than I did so I thought I'd share his photos as they're really terrific. He also took some nice ones of Shetland Ponies: And some of the beach: Seals (that's Lerwick in the background): A photo of Scalloway: And I took this… Continue reading More photos from the Shetland Islands
I'm not quite sure how to begin this post. I've just had a fantastic adventure in the Shetland Islands and saw and did so many wonderful things so this is probably going to be a long post. On Friday evening we boarded a ferry, the MV Hjaltland, for the Shetland Islands. The Shetland Islands are at… Continue reading The Shetland Islands
I was out in the garden today and this little robin redbreast came and said hello. Isn't he cute? There are a quite a few birds around. They, and the sunlight, wake us up at 5:30am 🙂 The little robin was interested in what I was doing because my digging was revealing tasty morsels to… Continue reading A robin redbreast and more of Elizabeth’s writing
I promised one of my commentators that I'd write a blog post about wind farms. This is perhaps against my better judgement since there is sure to be a heated discussion in the comments but I am not usually one to shy away from a good debate. So here goes. Why do wind farms generate… Continue reading Wind farms: love ’em or hate ’em?
Yesterday I wrote about the nocebo effect in wind turbine syndrome and a comment was made in that post about how windfarms kill birds. It is true that wind farms kill birds when they collide with the spinning blades but it is also true that the total number of deaths associated with wind farms is… Continue reading Wind turbines and birds
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