My blog is mostly about wildlife, particularly birds, walking, days out, all growing things and anything else that comes to mind.
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Saturday 11 April 2009

More woolly nests and garden birds.

More of the wet stuff again this morning and it lasted most of the day.

In terms of garden birds, the first arrivals were the two Lesser Redpolls. During the next hour the following arrived albeit in small numbers now that Spring is here.

A Song Thrush (very rare so delighted to see it) - no picture as too dark.
Goldfinches, Ring-necked Parakeets, Blue Tits, Feral Pigeons, Greenfinches, Robin, Dunnock, Magpies, Starlings and Great Tits. Strangely not seen any chaffinches as yet.

The Blue Tits who were finding the nesting wool the other day, have not taken any more. I assuming that they either a) have a very cosy wool-lined nest now or b) have found something else

However, today it was the turn of the Great Tit. Their behaviour in gathering the wool was very much different to that of the Blue Tit. Whereas the Blue Tit would try many angles, including hanging upside down, the Great Tit maintained an air of dignity by standing on the top of the container and pulling chunks of wool towards it.





The garden pond is heaving with tadpoles; whether my little pond will provide them with enough food at this stage I don't know. None have legs etc. yet so will be watching them closely from now on.

That's all for today folks!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once again Tricia beautiful shots of the wool gathering Great-tit.
Weather Oooop North, clear sky, sunshine all day.

paul.

Liz said...

Lovely, if a little wet photos Tricia.

It must be so exciting watching the birds gathering their nesting material!

Looks like you have our rain from yesterday, today is much better, dry and even had some of that yellow stuff in the sky.

Do take some tadpole and pond photos, I'd love to see some - and get pond ideas! I don't want a large one, rather have two or three smaller ponds in differing habitatis (sun, shade)

Midmarsh John said...

Dull and dreary here as well all today, Tricia.
Nice sequence of wool gathering.
Last year here the Blue Tits were pulling pieces out of an old coconut fibre hanging basket lining. Must have been an itchy nest.

mick said...

How great that you are able to supply the birds with wool for their nests and then get photos of them taking it away. Great photos too - I love the look of the rain drops on the branches.

Warren Baker said...

Those great tit photo's made me chuckle! Can it get anymore in it's beak ?

ShySongbird said...

Lovely photos again Tricia, what a busy bird! The weather was miserable here again today although better this afternoon and supposed to be a lot better tomorrow.

holdingmoments said...

What a difference in wool gathering. The Great certainly looks very dignified in his approach. Good garden selection too.
I'm hoping to get out later to pastures new, fingers crossed. :)

Richard said...

Great pictures of the wool gathering. Makes me want to try and help as I look at the pictures. Pull.....:-)

Anonymous said...

Happy Easter Tricia.

oldcrow61 said...

Lovely photos. Tricia, is that wool the same thing we call cotton batten?

Tricia Ryder said...

Firstly my apologies for not responding to all your comments before this. I've had a fairly full weekend and I'm only just home and catching up.

Paul Thanks - Sunshine is not something I understand anymore!

Liz - Thanks - yes, a little on the damp side.

John - seems most of us had the damp today. I agree about the "itchy nest".

Mick - Thanks - it would be the icing on the cake if they nested near me too - but I musn't be greedy!

Warren - I think it's "situation overload"

Jan - Thanks and fingers crossed for the weather improving.

Keith - very different techniques between the Blue and Great Tits. Hope you got out to somewhere new!

Richard - I know what you mean:
one, two, three, pull!

Roy - and a happy Easter to you too.

OC - thanks - it's actually sheep's wool so I suspect it's not the same??

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