Small Pleasures and Big Numbers.

OK, so here’s another fine mess… (Sorry, I’m currently watching a collection of Laurel and Hardy films) little mystery to ponder:

I went out to replenish the front bird table yesterday morning and found a large pebble on it – about an inch and a half long, an inch wide, and correspondingly thick. It goes without saying that such articles are not much given to rising from the path of their own volition and depositing themselves on a piece of wood 4½ft above the ground. So somebody or something must have put it there. It certainly wasn’t me, and the only other visitor to this house is the postman who is not the practical joking type. So who – or what – was it?

I suppose it could have been a mischievous fairy, but the more likely explanation is that it was a jackdaw. The jackdaw is a member of the crow family, and the crow family is well known for having a high level of intelligence. It’s widely thought that they are capable of understanding the concept of exchange, and there are many instances of crows leaving items on bird tables where they’ve been able to get food. That’s my best guess, and it’s rather endearing don’t you think? I wonder whether I might have done something to attract the approbation of the god of small things. It’s usually the small things which give me the most pleasure.

 

 

And talking of small things, today I saw a jackdaw bring one of its fledglings to the bird table at the side of the house. I’ve never seen a fledgling jackdaw before because they’ve never been in the habit of visiting the garden before. They’ve always stayed out in the fields where they’re too far away to pick out the young ones. And it was noticeably smaller than the parent, which is common in mammals but not so much in birds. So that’s something else I’ve learned his week, something small as usual.

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On a different tack entirely, Blogger stats tells me that the number of page views to this blog passed the ½ million mark this week. When I started fourteen and a half years ago I would never have countenanced such a large number, but that’s if it is to be believed. Frankly, I don’t believe it. A lot of the recorded visits over the past six months have been decidedly suspicious, and big numbers are generally of little consequence to me anyway.

The Bird That Thought It Was a Hedgehog.

So should I tell today’s story of the stricken bird? I don’t think so. It was one of those situations which seem terribly meaningful and interesting at the time, but when you go into detail you imagine that the reception would be nothing more than yawns and eye rolls. So I’ll just tell the beginning and the end.

I was going out for my daily walk this morning when I spotted what appeared to be a ball, about the size of a tennis ball, stuck to the side of the birds’ peanut feeder. Closer examination showed it to be a small bird gripping the holes in the feeder, but without any visible head or wings. It really had managed to tuck everything away so that it looked – quite literally – like a ball, brown on one side and buff on the other. Clearly it had learned the skill by watching hedgehogs, and that, in my experience, is very unusual.

That’s the start of the story. Now for the end.

An hour and a half later I saw it shoot away from the feeder and fly straight and fast to the big sycamore tree on the opposite side of the lane. I cheered silently.

(The interim, for what it’s worth, consisted of me cradling the little creature between my hands to bestow warmth, stroking it gently, and speaking words of encouragement in a quiet and gentle manner. It didn’t seem to mind.)

So that’s about it. Maybe I earned some positive karma or maybe I didn’t. Who can tell? Oh, and it was a nuthatch if anybody’s still reading.

Shire Sightings.

I saw the first baby robin of the season today. It’s always a delight, not just because of their speckled buff and brown chests, but because they have such a self-assured air abut them. I normally see baby birds following their parents around, flapping their wings by way of asking to be fed and having a general air of uncertainty about them. Not so the robin. Robins are loners by nature and the babies start as they mean to go on. They’re independent, sigma types, and can even be feisty with adult birds when some perception of need arises. I’ve posted this pic before, but I’ll forgive myself posting it again.

 

 

 

And then this morning I encountered the postie, and he told me that he’d seen a Red Deer stag on the common above the village. As far as I know, I was the first person to see Red Deer stags in these parts – two of them in fact – about three years ago. And then Mrs Murphy who owns the pub was severely startled by one leaping over a hedge in front of her one day. Red Deer make light work of leaping over hedges, it seems. They’re big and can be a bit scary at close quarters. So this is a Red Deer stag. (Both pics are stock shots, by the way, not mine.)

 

 

 

And that’s it for today because it’s been otherwise uneventful (apart from briefly giving my undivided attention to the slightly mad little scrufty dog at the bottom of the lane which barks aggressively while wagging its tail frantically and begging to be fussed. It always gets fussed by me.)

Precocious Nature.

The early part of 2022 is being unusually precocious in the plant world. Maybe it’s because the winter has been unusually capricious so far, swinging like a pendulum between cold spells and spells milder than we normally get in January. Yesterday I saw gorse, primroses and even daffodils in bloom, while the bluebells at the bottom of my garden are at least a month ahead of schedule.

And the birds seem to think it’s spring, too. They’re showing signs of pairing up well before the normal start of the mating season in April, and a blue tit is taking a great deal of interest in the newly-refurbished nest box behind the kitchen. Watching it is quite fascinating.

It stands on the entrance hole looking around the inside of the box, as though it’s weighing up the dimensions and working out how much material will be required for the nest. And then it goes into the box before pushing its head in and out of the circular hole. Is it assessing whether the size is just right to prevent invasion by bigger birds and rodents which might be predators? I wish I knew. After that it takes up a position on the edge of the hole again, this time looking around the general location. It appears to be working out how far away the nearest cover is, and how far above the ground the box is situated in case a fledgling should fall.

These actions are truly observed, but the reason for them remains a mystery. Is my imagination running away with me, or are blue tits a lot smarter than we think they are?

Baby Blackbird Update.

The Terrible Twins are now fending for themselves. You might recall the two plump blackbird fledglings I mentioned a couple of days ago, being frantically fed by a hard working dad. Today they were together again, but this time they were helping themselves to as much of the rolled oats as they could eat. And I know they’re the same pair of fledglings because they’re unusually marked.

They’re still engagingly naïve, though, as fledglings always are. Watching baby birds finding their feet is one of the delights of spring for me. And one of the Terrible Twins came onto the bird table when I was standing right by it, watching me and seeming uncertain as to whether big creatures standing upright are dangerous or not. I said ‘hello’ and looked the other way. Baby carried on eating.

As for dad, he’s been mostly absent. I assume he’s had quite enough of pushing food into the broad beaks of bonny bouncing babies for one year, thank you very much, and taken himself off to get his life back.

Buried Charms, Blackbirds and Bossy Women.

I was in a shop today and heard a soppy pop ballad that was big when I was fourteen. I remember sitting in the bath singing it and feeling forlorn after having had my advances spurned by the girl of my dreams. Hearing it today I wondered how on earth I could ever have considered finding such a pile of dingo’s droppings worth singing, dream girl or no dream girl. ‘How much I’ve changed,’ I thought. ‘How hard edged and cynical life’s vitriol has made me. Where has my soppy side gone?’ And then I realised that the soppy fourteen-year-old is still in here somewhere; he just sleeps more soundly these days and it takes a different kind of trigger to wake him up.

Later I saw two female blackbird fledglings standing together on the edge of the bird table, being fed with much dedication and energy by their dad. Poor bloke was working himself to a frazzle, tirelessly filling eager, gaping maws with beakfulls of rolled oats. And it struck me as amusingly ironic that the two juveniles were bigger than him.

Later still, I discovered that Ellie Taylor has the same birthday as me. ‘Who is Ellie Taylor?’ I hear you ask. Well, by an odd coincidence, it was the very same question which led me to discover that she has the same birthday as me. So who is she? Still not sure. A celebrity of some sort, which is all you need to be these days if you want to be one of the candles on the birthday cake. And might I just add that I’ve never yet met a female Sagittarian with whom I could get on. Too demanding. (Which brings me neatly back to female fledgling blackbirds. I must be well tuned in tonight.)

The Cheeping Post.

There was a little fledgling bird sitting in the middle of the road at the end of Bag Lane, cheeping plaintively. I assumed it had left the nest before it was quite ready.

 A fledgling bird (not cheeping plaintively.)

That sort of thing worries me and I naturally wanted to help the little guy, but what to do? The experts’ advice is to do nothing; they say the parents will continue to feed it as long as you don’t touch it. Parent birds don’t like the smell of humans, apparently. (Come to think of it, neither do I particularly.)

So, having warned off a cyclist who was about to ride perilously close to the little creature, I shooed it off onto the verge and walked away in the hope that the parents would do their duty. When I came back to the same spot later it was gone and I carried on walking home.

What do you think I found when I got there? The same little bird sitting in front of my car, cheeping plaintively. But at least it was also pecking something from the ground, so I assumed it had learned how to feed itself even if it couldn’t fly yet. I decided to fetch it some oats and seed from the house so it wouldn’t have to try too hard to find food, but when I returned to the spot it had disappeared. Good; maybe it’s flown away. Nope. It was sitting at the top of my lawn cheeping plaintively!

I fetched more food and a bowl of water; I put them down in front of the little guy; he ignored all three of us (the food, the bowl of water, and me.) And then he hopped away and disappeared under the plants in the garden. I hoped there were no rats or cats about. I couldn’t see any.

You know, wildlife sometimes has a way of making you feel absolutely bloody useless.

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And I watched the kiddies from the Blue Tit’s nest box make their bid for freedom yesterday, something I’ve never seen before. It was one of those ‘Come on, come on, you can do it!’ moments, and I was very proud of them. But later I saw one of the tinies sitting on the path by my shed, and guess what it was doing. Cheeping plaintively. Forget the rest.

No-Say Day.

The day so far is proving to be one of those nothing-to-say ones. I have nothing to say on the blog. I get days like that. It isn’t that I don’t want to communicate, I do, but via the internet? No. Blogging won’t do. E-mailing won’t do. I think I’m pining for the woman’s touch, and if ever you hear me use that expression again, you may send the men in white coats to put an end to it all. ‘The woman’s touch’ is OK; it’s the word ‘pining’ that sets the shivers a-shivering.

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I suppose I could mention this, just by way of making a valiant effort:

I saw the first fledgling at lunchtime. A young blackbird was being fed quantities of oats by her dad, which looked odd because fledgling birds are often bigger than their parents, and such was the case with this fat little lady. Cute, though, as always.

Two Bird Stories (and a Connection.)

Yesterday’s great delight was the appearance of the first fledglings of the summer. Two little female sparrows, still with that characteristic softness about their new feathers, accompanied their mother to the bird table. There followed frenetic flappings of baby wings to command the mother’s attention, and she dutifully gave each one a beakfull of food. Then she flew away and the kids picked up some food for themselves before following her. Learning the ropes, of course.

On a similar theme, but of maybe deeper significance, I had an unusual experience this morning.

I’ve been watching the parent blue tits bringing food for the chicks in the nest box outside my kitchen window for a couple of weeks now. I glanced at it when I first got up, and it looked different somehow. It looked empty. I couldn’t understand how that could be, since it looks the same from the outside as it has done ever since I put a roof on it four years ago. I pondered the question for a while, and realised that it had nothing to do with the appearance of the box, but rather a feeling inside me. I sensed that it had been abandoned. I kept an eye on it all day, and there have been no birds anywhere near it. The chicks obviously fledged before I got up this morning, which is what they usually do. So where did this ‘sense’ come from? I’ve never felt it before, and yet it was sudden and quite powerful. It hit me the second I looked at the box. It made me feel slightly sad that something precious had gone. Am I becoming attuned, I wonder?