More February Observations - 8th to 14th February, 2024

I have made the decision that, even though my free time is currently limited, I will try to make the effort to continue to output a blog post on an approximately weekly basis. With my ability to get out into the wild severely limited, my observations have, primarily, been of birds in our garden, and it is likely to continue that way for a few weeks. Here's an account of some of my sightings.

Thursday, 8th February          Garden

The weather this day was absolutely foul, with heavy rain all day, which caused local flooding. The rain on the windows of the conservatory made it difficult to identify anything but the most obviously plumaged birds. One such bird that visited was a Pied Wagtail. I tried the technique of placing the lens hard up against the glass of the window as I have found, in the past, that this can sometimes 'see through' the rain. To some extent, this technique worked, as shown below.

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba yarrellii) (female) - our garden

Saturday, 10th February          Garden

This was the best day of the year so far, with 20 species of bird visiting the garden. There was, however, one disappointment and that was when Lindsay alerted me to a bird that she said was behaving like a Chaffinch, but looked wrong. I took a look and spotted a fine male Brambling. However, I had already put my camera in the conservatory, ready for the breakfast session and it disappeared before I could get to the camera. This resulted in rather a lot of time spent gazing out of the window, camera at ready, in the hope of its return. 

All I photographed that day was a male Bullfinch.

Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) (male) - our garden

Sunday, 11th February          Garden

To my absolute delight, the Brambling visited again this day, and I managed a few photos, albeit at a distance as it was approximately 15 metres away from my position in my study. These images are very heavily cropped from the original.

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) (male) - our garden

We finished the week with, what for us was, a remarkable tally of twenty six species of bird landing in our garden during the seven days.

 

Monday, 12th February          Garden

 

I photographed a few birds this day. Coal Tit used to be a regular visitor to our garden some years ago, but nowadays we probably only average one or two sightings in a month. This one was photographed in poor light high in a tree at the far side of the garden, but at least it is a record of its visit.

 

Coal Tit (Periparus ater) - our garden

The female Blackcap is continuing to make the occasional visit. I wish she would find a mate to bring to the party.

Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) (female) - our garden

Chaffinches are daily visitors to the garden, and I really should pay more attention to them with the camera. These birds often come to a part of the garden which is quite close to my study window. However, it seems to be the females that I manage to photograph. I really must try harder to get some images of the more colourful males.

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) (female) - our garden

Wednesday, 14th February          near Plumtree, Nottinghamshire  :  Garden

 

I have been backwards and forwards to a hospital near Nottingham over the past couple of weeks, in connection with Lindsay's knee replacement. On one of those journeys, I remarked to Lindsay that a group of run-down barns, close to the road in a very rurl location, looked as if they might be a place that hosted an owl. On Tuesday 13th she had her knee operation, and on the Wednesday morning I went to visit her in hospital, but decided to spend ten minutes by the barns to see if any owls might be around. I didn't spot any owls but there did seem to be a few feral pigeons.

Unlike some areas of the UK, I very rarely see a feral pigeon in our area, even in our local town. Feral pigeons are decended from Rock Dove stock which have been domesticated. This, I believe, was the first species of bird ever to domesticated - apparently over 5,000 years ago! Over the years, escapees have become naturalised and are now a regular feature of cityscapes. They are interbreeding with wild doves, and there are many variations in plumage.

Given the above, I was quite surprised to find that the only birds sighted in the vicinity of the barns were feral pigeons. I took some shots of a male making amorous advances on a female.

Feral Pigeon (Columba livia domestica) (male + female)- near Plumtree, Nottinghamshire

I got home, after visiting Lindsay, to find a Bullfinch and Siskin feeding together.

Bullfinch ( (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) (male) + Siskin (Spinus spinus) (male) - our garden

This brings me to the end of this post. I am pleased to report that Lindsay is recovering nicely, although she is likely to remain totally dependent on me for support (cooking, cleaning, washing, etc.) for a week or two. She's got two return visits to the hospital, which is an hour's travel away from home, scheduled for this coming week.

 

Hopefully, I'll be back with another blog post in about a week's time. In the meantime, please take good care of yourselves and Nature. Thank you for dropping by - - - Richard