General Chat

Isn't fabulous, that all these things are happening around us.

I must say I live right in the middle of Town, and there is usually so much noise, that we cannot hear the birdsong. The sky is clearer, and there is no fug as such over London. There is always a bit of a haze.

We have had beautiful sunsets too, most evenings the sky has been pink, with delicate little clouds. I only usually notice the sky when we are on holiday at the coast. :-D

We have at least two swift nests in the eaves of our house. From where I am typing this, I can hear the chicks squeaking when the parents return.

MotownGal
That's lovely.
I'm going to go out and look for swifts today, before our weather changes. In summer, they swoop over a waterway near here, but I haven't seen any yet.

I sympathise about noisy birds.
Here it's seagulls, which screech at us if they think we are too near 'their' territory.

We had swifts swooping last night. They were dancing in the sky. Beautiful!

Nesting:- Blue tits, blackbirds, pigeons. Visiting :- egrets, kingfisher, most of the corvids, including a pair of ravens, mallard, robin, wren, red kite, buzzard, kestrel, sparrowhawk. Some small fish in the river, probably dace, and flying around the river, banded demoiselles.

One particularly noisy pair of Magpies sit on my chimney pots first thing in the morning, chattering away.

Unfortunately the noise echoes down the chimney and amplifies it around the house.

Sadly, I am a light sleeper. :-D

Last week I had in my garden, what I believe to be a Jay,
Made a change from various Tits, Starlings, Blackbirds,Collared Doves, Magpies,Pigeons,Sparrows, Hedgehogs, and a cheeky Crow which made off (several times) with a freshly placed fat ball...

Saw my 1st Swift high in sky this morning.

I keep reading the op as MATURE garden watch

Mind wanders to watching a different species of Birds...

My neighbour's cat seems to have taken up permanent residence under my back garden bench.

I was wondering why my bird feeder was not been used these last few days.

Lovely friendly cat nonetheless. :-D

Heron on the river bank this morning, also saw the biggest fish I have seen in the river this morning, not a pike. Fishing matches held on river in the winter so this 1 may have been caught many times.

Blackbirds
Sparrows
Goldfinches
Greenfinches
Bullfinches
Wrens
Great tits
Magpies
Starlings
Robins
Sparrowhawk (seen once)
Heron (not seen but has depleted our pond fish!)
Newts
Bats (don't know what sort)
Numerous damselflies
Also saw a barn owl flying in broad daylight, across our local fields.

Cygnets had their 1st trip on river yesterday, on & off all day, suppose like all babies short bursts then back to nest to sleep. Seen more birds this year, lots of all kinds of Tits, & Finches & Yellow Hammers, also lots of different Butterflies. Maybe they are always there but too busy to notice them but with the lockdown had more time.
MowtownGal, Maybe the foxes are about in the day time because they have young ones, heard the other day that Urban Foxes have been having a hard time while we have been in lockdown, no litter on streets from takeaways & now no one has dustbins they can get into, we all seem to have wheelie bins. Feel sorry for them really. Love those Parakeets.

Our London Plane tree is full of finches. Also a tree along the road is full of parakeets! Wonderful colours.

Also, foxes quite happily trot down the street in the afternoon.

Strange for the middle of Town.

Well I have a variety of birds that I feed usually on the front lawn.There is Florrie & Robbie my pair of robins.They were collecting grass etc to obviously make a nest somewhere but they fly off so quick I cant see where it is.
Plenty of blackbirds, sparrows and crows plus a hungry seagull called greedy George who sits on the roof waiting for me!
I have a pair of doves nesting in my trees but have no idea who they belong to but they make a lot of noise. The cuckoo is still around making his noise too.

Sharron, there are so many slugs in my garden.I really don't know where they come from.Im afraid I murder them with salt in order to protect my plants!!

Across the road there was also a huge rat that disappeared down a hole and now I do not leave the door open.
I have seen quite a few cabbage white butterflies but no other varieties.
We also get a few buzzards too.
Just never realised just how much wildlife I have in my garden

Florence in the hebrides!

Frogs :-D

A badger came to visit the garden the other night :-D

the sparrows and blue tits are flitting about but shock horror, one unwanted guest shot across the garden a big brown rat
ugh

Keep your distance from the moorhen chicks or you dreams will be shattered. Close up, they are hideous!

We have the odd buzzard circling and the neighbour has blue-tits in his nest box. They flit in and out.

We specialize in slugs and are doing our best to give them a balanced diet it would appear.

Hilary, that's lovely to have swans so near you. The parents are protecting their young so well.
One of my local walks takes me near a swan's nest. They hatched 4 eggs a few weeks ago and the young cygnets are doing well with their daily swims on the water. They have been much photographed by local people during lockdown and now go quite some distance each day.
On a different route, I saw moorhen chicks this week. There were 4 tiny balls of black fluff mooching about in the weed.