WHAT'S BUZZING OR FLYING NEAR YOU 2020

They do store and carry food in their pouches. We have had one living under our deck for nine years now, my granddaughter named him Simon. He is pretty tame and will come when you call him and eat from your hand. He is persistent in that if you don't feed him he will stand on your foot and give you a sorrowful look until you give him a handout. We feed him sunflower seed and grapes and cherries. It is something to see him with a large black cherry in his mouth. He is quite a character and fun to have around the property. Something, probably another chipmunk, bit a good portion of his tail off. They are solitary and do not tolerate other chipmunks in their territory.

 

Green Heron and Cedar Waxwings.

 

This morning, at 5.30, I sat on a bench on the patio to have a cup of hot water and the male blackbird came and sat on the bench and chatted to me for a couple of minutes.

So! Shiney. Who was that Bird, I saw you chatting up this morning? Asks Mrs Shiney

 

Living one floor up. The view from the kitchen window reveals much. Apart from the terrible state of downstairs garden.....TIP.

My very tall conifer affords a datk background for all the flying bugs. It's amazing how like the flights of starlings that perform their fantastic arial dances, never a collision. The bugs, mainly the hover flies, dash to and fro like bullets.
I would love to be able to moniter their speed.

 

@hydrogardener, are the Waxwings resident or migrant, ours here only come in winter if the food supply in Scandinavia dries up some years we may see hardly any.
I did see some Waxwings in Durango in August a couple of years ago which was a surpirise for me thinking of them as winter birds. The Green Heron is a beauty, I have only seen the Blue.

 

I have seen a few waxwings in the winter but not a lot. This time of year the berry bushes are full and they are plentiful.

 

While cleaning a raised bed I found a pile of soil with a hole in it and I could see an eye looking out at me. I placed a trail cam in front of the hole to see what was living in the hole and in the morning the video showed a rabbit coming at night to nurse her babies. We have four of them now living about the yard, they hardly pay any attention to us as they go about their business and we go about ours; a live and let live arrangement.

 

The House Martins have arrived, my garden area is one of their 'stop offs' in the long flight south. A couple of weeks earlier than normal which doesn't bode well.

 

Hi Sheal. That reminds me of my working days. An elderly labourer greeted me on morning. Mick, Mick, they're back. He was of course talking about the martins , swifts and swallows. He was like a little kid with a new toy. He remained amazed that these tiny fragile birds could travel six thousand miles from North Africa. He'd always say. There you are. They don't need an A-Z.

Happpy days.

 

Yes Mike, it's amazing the distances that birds fly. It's a long commute twice a year. The geese fly over here too but it's a bit early to see those yet.

 

Swifts are starting to depart this month, last to arrive, first to go but they travel further south than the other three. Those Martins are early @Sheal but they may take their time moving south, they could even be Scandanavian birds.