Bird, Bath & Beyond

[Credits to M on the catchy title.] [M also notes that he likes having the slightly mysterious 'James Bond' - style code name; thus bringing an air of intrigue to the proccedings and subtly suggesting he could be an undercover operative; i.e he stays inside].

It's always been a habit of mine to keep nature diaries [although they tend to be sporadic]. I would really like to turn it into a proper nature diary with sketches etc, but currently I just don't have the patience! Maybe a challenge for next year. In lieu of something more official, I try and keep a notebook by the back door so I can jot down interesting things when I see them [otherwise I'll forget] so I can use them as a reference for the blog and the many, many photos I've taken; such as:

"3rd June: A pigeon appears to have disrobed itself in the the night and the sparrows are having an absolute field day at the abundance of white fluffy feathers".

I've been putting out live calci/meal worms as a bit of a treat for the birds - at this time of year most of them have numerous mouths to feed, so it helps them out a bit. There's a chunk of wood in the middle of the lawn [discreetly covering a small hole] which I've taken to placing offerings to the wildlife on. Unfortunately, the larger birds, particularly the magpies and pigeons [both feral and wood] tend to dominate these [mostly to eat the seed, but also and particularly the feral pigeons, like to treat this as a central stage in an attempt to 'woo' the ladies, the majority of whom couldn't care less and would just like to enjoy their meal in peace].

While the larger birds can fit more in a beakful, they also tend to be messier in their eating habits, with worms and seeds spraying about like an erratic sprinkler system. In order to combat this chaos, and ensure all birds have the opportunity of seeing the food, I've taken to scattering it about the garden, thus encouraging them to naturally forage; whilst improving my throwing ability. [I was once complimented on how well I threw grit on icy paths at work and I can only attribute this to years of experience of flinging bird seed about].

The younger birds start off a bit clueless about the whole 'eating for yourself' idea. They scuttle round after their parents, other chicks and, occaisionally, other non related birds. One starling chick matured a bit faster than the rest of his cohort and started hanging out with the sparrow chicks instead. The rest of the starlings have caught up and appear [with the assistance of a forceful beak-jab from their parents] to have left home on mass and have now formed a gang. One decided that the best place to sit [in the middle of the breakfast rush] was in the bowl along with the worms. There's definately fewer starling chicks than previous years, I've counted maybe 10 youngsters.

I put an extra bowl of water out one lunchtime, as there were riots between the sparrows and the starlings over bathing and drinking rights. I returned to refresh the water not three hours later and somehow there was a diving beetle in it [left] ???

To rectify the overcrowding issue, I went and bought a larger, lovely blue glazed plant saucer. This has been steadfastedly ignored by both the drinkers and the bathers alike.

I was very kindly gifted some gardening vouchers for my birthday so I decided now was the time to move and upgrade the bird feeding pole. I was a bit worried initially whether the birds would take offense at this or perhaps go on strike [which would mean I could eke out the dwindling bird seed for a few more days], but no - they coped fine with it moving. However I failed to realise that with the new pole there was a new tray: one for seed and one for water. The suggested construction design on the box suggested placing these two fixtures surprisingly low down - so I thought I'd be smart, and move them higher up [out of cat/fox reach]. But this meant that birds [ok, mostly wood pigeons] could stand on the tray and reach into the two hanging feeders...this wasn't ideal, but didn't seem to be a huge issue. Unfortunately one wood pigeon felt this was not enough and continually kept reaching up through the feeder to reach the highest feeding portal. I was genuinely concerned it would lose its footings and inadvertedly strangle itself, so this prompted me to move the trays back to the original location. Much outrage.

"If I fits, I sits"

There is one wood pigeon who is very attached to the seed tray. Not only for the occasional addition of food, but also the pleasing rounded shape [the old one was square]. In the process of trying [vainly] to keep the pigeons off/out of the tray entirely [preventing the strangling risk], I tried rigging up small sticks to prevent landings. This may be a contributing factor to this bird thinking that this particular tray is a suitable nest location. Something knocked down all the sticks...but I can't account for two of them...someone probably thought they were for nest building knowing our garden!

We had a bit of hedgehog intervention this month. One of the visiting hogs has injured it's back leg and has been limping. Thanks to the video camera we've been monitoring the situation and have noticed that the leg started was starting to swell up. It seems to be moderately inconveniencing the hog; he can't scratch properly but manages to walk ok. So, being a concerned citizen I contacted a hedgehog forum on Facebook. They said that the hog in question needed to be seen by a vet [I had sent them a video] and I should "scoop him into a box and take straight to a rescue". Which would have been a fine idea except for the fact that we could not see the animal in question. Long story short, we got given the contact details for a rescue in Fife [!] but they were full up and wouldn't have collected him, so they told us to take him to the Dick Vet at the Bush Estate [interesting note - you don't get charged for bringing in injured wildlife here] when we could contain him. So que much staying up late and trying to work out how to get ourselves and a boxed hedgehog to the vet in the middle of the night. Naturally after fretting and waiting up way past my bedtime several nights in a row, the hedgehog failled to materialise. So watch this space. We still have an 'emergency hog box' packed, just in case.

Quite an exciting discovery in the front garden! Down one side of the house, I've left a strip of unmown grass [this started out as No Mow May, but has been extended into No Mow June and No Mow July]. I was doing a recce one morning and came across this little beauty! I'm told it's a Northern Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza purpurella), a Scottish native of damp grasslands. Also interestingly orchids are protected species, covered by Section 13 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Guess I've a good excuse for not cutting the grass now!!!

I saw a fox in the back garden one night and proceeded to watch it as it easily scaled the fence to next door and then over the next fence. Later we watched it walking confidently along the top of wall at the back of our houses before dropping down to the road behind, nonchalantly walking up the street on the pavement....only to return to the garden half an hour later to scoffle all the hedgehog food we left out.

I opened the lid of the peanut feeder one morning [to check for slugs, who also like peanuts as it turns out] and found a highly surprised mouse inside.

Lots of flowers out in June - probably accounts for all the bees!

MISSING SQUIRRELS!!!

We've not seen Sassy for over two weeks now...in fact there seems to be a general squirrel shortage...fingers crossed she's just nursing her young but getting a bit concerned something else has happened to her.