Last Saturday found me in Cambridge with my daughter, and on our meanderings through town we dived into Fopp, which is probably my favourite shop of them all because not only does it sell CD’s (terribly 20th century, I know), but it also has a fair vinyl selection! The upshot of that was that I left for home a good few pounds lighter and a few discs heavier, and one of those discs consisted of the entire recorded output of the original Chicago blues man, Robert Johnson.
So as soon as we got home I inserted said Mr Johnson into the CD player and lost myself in the blues, and whilst I was in my blues-fueled reverie I noticed there was alot of avian activity going on in the garden so I grabbed my camera and spent a few minutes photographing them, so here is a selection of my visitors:
My favourite garden visitor is the dunnock (Prunella modularis, Dansk: jernspurv). He hunkered down in the border and watched me taking photographs
Another species which is appearing more and more often in gardens is the wood pigeon (Columba palumbus, Dansk: ringdue). Wood pigeon are a much maligned species in my opinion, they seem to be universally despised by country folk and shot out of the skies in huge numbers. Having said that, there are huge numbers of them, and I often see flocks of many hundreds or even thousands in Histon and one of these flocks can decimate a fields of sprouting crops in a very short space of time. So it’s understandable that they are not at the top of the farmers’ christmas card list.
Much disliked the wood pigeon may be, but they are handsome birds and more than welcome to refuel in my backyard!
And then who should appear, but my resident blackbirds. The gladiatorial action is long past now and they have settled down to the business of reproduction. I can’t confirm it yet but I think they may have built a nest in one of my bushes. I hope so.
The blackbird male in his new found larder
My wife and daughter created this new flowerbed at the weekend and he spent a good few minutes meticulously turning over the surface on a quest for an insect feast. He’d just finished working his way from one end to the other when the female entered from the left and sent him packing in short order.
The blackbird female mopping up the insects disturbed by the male
The romance is over now and they’re into the serious business of begetting and raising young. Lots of bird species are currently using my garden so I’ll try to post some more pictures of them in the near future, hopefully including fledglings.
The Naturephile 