11 April 2011
Exciting News!
There are five eggs in the robin's nest. (Photograph taken a few minutes ago -- presumably the bird was off foraging somewhere.)
Zena - arrival time?
Z have tried dto email you, asking what time on Thu 14 you actually arrive Perth, so we can plan when to head for the big cottage to meet you... Pls email Rosie and me with your flight time details. Hope you all had a good time at Smith Lake...
10 April 2011
Spring Flowers
Not sure what this one is called. (Were there a Wugster about, I could ask.) It's growing against the shady fence, where it never gets direct sunlight, which is presumably its preferred habitat.
09 April 2011
A Forest of Dandelions
I went to the allotment this morning, to strim the grass before departure for Australia; that took an hour, which was about half the time I expected to spend on the task. It was such a lovely sunny day -- unseasonably warm for April; so warm in the sunshine that I was, as is my wont on such occasions, legging about in next to nothing -- that I was tempted to stay, and dig out the dandelions which always sprout at this time (but only, thankfully, in the beds we didn't dig over in February or March to take the bean and potato crops). But I couldn't because this afternoon was the 2011 AGM of the Tottenham Civic Society, of which I am (and was re-elected as) the secretary. (I was sorely tempted to propose an emergency motion to move the meeting, in a hired room at Bruce Castle, to the lawn outside, but then our guest's presentation wouldn't have worked -- no cabling of the length required, ambient light too strong for anyone to see the screen, etc. etc..) Instead, I took a couple of photographs of the dandelion crop. By the time we return, a month from now, the flowers will have been replaced by puffballs, and indeed the seeds of the puffballs almost certainly have been released hither and yon, generating colossal quantities of dandelions all over the plot next spring. So be not surprised if I utter a curse or two about the timing of Kellie's wedding as I fork over the soil in April and May 2012....
08 April 2011
Photographs of Spring 2011
I've added some more photos to the Facebook photo album of the signs of spring in our back garden over the past couple of weeks. Use the embedded link to view the new images.
07 April 2011
Robin Redbreast Again
The robin on its nest in the ivy, photographed about half an hour ago this morning. I took several such photographs; it seemed remarkably unperturbed by the whole business.
05 April 2011
Robin Redbreast
We have put feed out for the birds every day since we bought our house. Having started with a wooden RSPB birdtable (which ultimately succumbed to the weather, and disintegrated), we now have an array of feeding stations, caged or hung in such a way as to prevent the local squirrels from getting at them (and, inter alia, also excluding the larger birds such as feral pigeons -- in fact, the feral pigeons seem to have given up on our garden, and "larger birds" now means exclusively wood pigeons and collared doves). But not once in the past seventeen years have we ever had birds nesting in our garden -- chiefly if not wholly because we have no suitable nest sites: the only trees are fruit trees and, except for a few spots, the wooden fences are kept clear for food plants to grow up.
The weekend just past, however....
On Sunday, Judith was cutting back some sweet cecily on the southern side of the garden (i.e., adjacent to the north-facing fence) when she spotted a robin fluttering around the ivy which cloaks the part of the fence next to the greenhouse. It flew past her and down onto our small lawn, which had been given its first cut of the year on Saturday afternoon, and picked up some of the newly exposed moss. Nest-building material? Indisputably -- it flew back into the ivy, and a minute or so later came out in search of another beakful.
We retreated into the greenhouse, to both give it more space and get a better view of the nest it was constructing. By evening the following day (i.e., yesterday) it appeared to be finished: you had to know where to look, but the curve of the bowl was quite clear. But of the bird itself there was no sign -- not sitting in the nest, not flitting about the garden, not singing from the trees in the adjacent gardens. Nor was there any sign of it this morning (although the drizzly, blustery weather this morning was not conducive to birds being out and about).
The overriding problem with the nest site, however, is that it is startlingly low down: on the bottom of the fence's two horizontal rails and thus only about a foot off the ground, which makes it hugely vulnerable to predation by the neighbourhood cats (not to mention the local squirrels and the local foxes whom we know have visited our garden in the past). Although adult robins are tough little birds which should be able to escape if attacked, whether their nestlings will make it to the fledging stage (if indeed the eggs aren't taken before they hatch) is another matter altogether. But was the bird's absence a sign that it had already been attacked, and was either dead or had abandoned the nest before laying a single egg?
We don't know. Nor, if the bird has survived, will we know what happens in the immediate future, because we are shortly due to depart for a few weeks in Australia, and will therefore be away for most of the period during which we can expect eggs to be laid and hatched. We hope very much that will happen, and that a brood of robin chicks will be there on our return; otherwise, we may have only the bowl of the nest to remind us that a bird was once there at all.
The weekend just past, however....
On Sunday, Judith was cutting back some sweet cecily on the southern side of the garden (i.e., adjacent to the north-facing fence) when she spotted a robin fluttering around the ivy which cloaks the part of the fence next to the greenhouse. It flew past her and down onto our small lawn, which had been given its first cut of the year on Saturday afternoon, and picked up some of the newly exposed moss. Nest-building material? Indisputably -- it flew back into the ivy, and a minute or so later came out in search of another beakful.
We retreated into the greenhouse, to both give it more space and get a better view of the nest it was constructing. By evening the following day (i.e., yesterday) it appeared to be finished: you had to know where to look, but the curve of the bowl was quite clear. But of the bird itself there was no sign -- not sitting in the nest, not flitting about the garden, not singing from the trees in the adjacent gardens. Nor was there any sign of it this morning (although the drizzly, blustery weather this morning was not conducive to birds being out and about).
The overriding problem with the nest site, however, is that it is startlingly low down: on the bottom of the fence's two horizontal rails and thus only about a foot off the ground, which makes it hugely vulnerable to predation by the neighbourhood cats (not to mention the local squirrels and the local foxes whom we know have visited our garden in the past). Although adult robins are tough little birds which should be able to escape if attacked, whether their nestlings will make it to the fledging stage (if indeed the eggs aren't taken before they hatch) is another matter altogether. But was the bird's absence a sign that it had already been attacked, and was either dead or had abandoned the nest before laying a single egg?
We don't know. Nor, if the bird has survived, will we know what happens in the immediate future, because we are shortly due to depart for a few weeks in Australia, and will therefore be away for most of the period during which we can expect eggs to be laid and hatched. We hope very much that will happen, and that a brood of robin chicks will be there on our return; otherwise, we may have only the bowl of the nest to remind us that a bird was once there at all.
03 April 2011
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