A Rewarding garden bird watch.

Whilst on the one hand I think of next Monday as the end of week 3 of our 12-week virus isolation, it sounds better when you say 25% of the period has passed. On the other hand, 21 days out of 84 doesn’t sound so good! 

As we had 4 days isolation in Lanzarote and came home to go straight into UK confinement mode, I like to think we have done 25 days….it all helps.

I expect like many people, we started off on a positive note thinking how many things we could do to keep us occupied, made a list, added to it, and ticked off those completed. But there is a limit, and we have been so active while keeping occupied, our “to do” list is getting shorter. We long for rain, so that the grass will grow, and we can put “mow grass” back on the list. If the car does not move, then there is no car wash to add either. 

                        Oh blast!!! Sunday pm, strong wind has broken the sun brolly stand… on the list for Monday!

I could do more writing, but as I expect to be telling you next week, there are limits!!

A Mini-Bird survey.

HOWEVER…. I had an enjoyable hour on Saturday morning sitting in the garden with paper, pencil, coffee and bins, doing a census of all avian visitors in 60 minutes.

Every species I anticipated, did appear apart from Great Tit, and the only unexpected was a Feral Pigeon fly-by - I ticked off 7 species.

There was no clear winner, but the most interesting were Blue Tits  Leslie and Lesley (7 sightings), who repeatedly visited nest box No 4, on 3 occasions carrying nesting material, and sometimes they were both in the box at the same time. We are still not clear what stage they are at in the box. In a previous year, when the Blue Tits had youngsters, they were in and out non-stop, but that level of activity is not happening yet, and there is certainly no sign of food carrying.

One Blue Tit had a brief look in Nest box 2, but we are not sure if this is another family or not.

The next regular, also with 7 sightings, were the Blackbirds  Rodney and Cassandra who were just - busy. We suspect that they have more interest in another hedge, which is not very visible. Only saw Cassandra once in the hour.

Woodpigeon Will came 7 times in the hour and became quite predictable. In his last 4 visits, there were 8/9 minutes exactly between each visit, and he would arrive from right to left, low across the lawn, up and over the Lupins, and settle at the base of the feeder. Watching the Dunnocks through binoculars, it was clear that was a fussy eater and very adept at throwing out seed that did not appeal, an- d Will was quite happy to pick up this rejected fare. As I have said before - result = no weeds!

Dunnocks kept busy, interspersed with a bit of singing, but lacked any sign of amorous intentions in the 60 minutes monitoring.

With just 3 minutes left, it was good to see the Robin fly into a hedge, fly away, then come back for a good bath. When he had finished he hopped over the fence, only to come back 30 seconds later to wash the bit he had forgotten!

Very intermittent views of Magpies and carrion Crows completed the survey.

It was interesting, and I’ll do it again next week to see if things have changed.

Finally, if you have any birding experiences savour them …. they are few and far between at the moment!!

QI.  

12^th April was a key date for space travel. In 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first person to do an orbital space flight, and 20 years later in 1981, the first space shuttle, Columbia, took off.

Next week I will tell you the result of my requested reader census, and in the light of the results, what I intend to do. Please let have your comment if you have not yet done one. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!!!

Happy Birding, as good as it can be!