What's buzzing or flying near you 2022 ?

We have a male pheasant and his four females visit every morning from dawn until about 10 a.m. and they wait under the bird feeders for the what the other birds drop. Sometimes they return throughout the day (not together) for a little more.

Yesterday afternoon we had a new male visit us. He is obviously younger, a lot slimmer but looking very smart. New pheasants to the garden are normally very wary of us but this one wasn't the least bit worried. The others are used to us and will happily let us get within 5ft as long as we walk past slowly. This new male decided to investigate and came slowly walking towards us. We remained still and watched. He came within 2ft, had a look and then strolled slowly away.

Beautiful plumage.

 

Another interesting situation this afternoon. Recently we have had a red kite circling over our garden. He is obviously keeping an eye on the small chicken bones that are on the lawn most days.

A lot of people here on GC know about the visiting cat (Sarafi from four doors away) that spends most of his time in our garden and snuggles up to us all the time. He also supervises the work I do in the garden . He is now 15 years old, quite fit but appearing a lot thinner than he used to be. At home he is fed dry cat food but here he feasts on two chicken wings a day. His preference is for them to be roasted with garlic and herbs - which is also my wife's favourite snack.

So, Sarafi always has his wings on the lawn just by the edge of the patio and when he's finished the bones are there. They always used to be taken by the resident crows but the kite has decided that it's his territory. Being a nervous bird he circles overhead and waits for us and Sarafi to go.

Today I went into the greenhouse and a few minutes later the kite came over, saw nobody in the garden and glided slowly lower, missing the greenhouse roof by about 6". He looks enormous close up and I guess he had a wingspan of about 5ft. As he scooped up a couple of bones he spotted me in the greenhouse, let out a high pitched screech and flew off. He looked magnificent.

A few minutes later he was circling overhead and he got divebombed by a seagull. He took offence at that and chased after it. Then two other seagulls joined in. After a bit of an airborne squabble two of the seagulls flew off and the third perched on the roof!

Until they get really close you don't realise how big they are .

 

Good aftern @zenj my friend you posted the above image in an old 2018 thread so I have moved it to this one 2022

 

Good afternoon