Last week we had a sparrowhawk in the garden; a regular visitor and a supreme ambush predator.
The sparrowhawk uses the trees at the bottom of the garden to spot and prey on either house sparrows, starlings and other smaller birds/mammals. Now that the trees are in full leaf it finds it easier to get its prey from the gardens around where I live.
This time of year they look for more food as it’s egg laying time and unfortunately this adult starling was lunch for this young adult bird.
Spring is here at last and over the last couple of weeks here in the UK we have had some wonderful weather (well 2 weeks ago that is, I’m a bit late in posting 🙂 ).
The garden has been in bloom with the first flowers coming through (although we do have winter growing flowers), the leaves on our big trees making a welcome appearance and getting seeds planted in the greenhouse for the veggie plot. 🙂
In the greenhouse we have lettuce, tomatoes, runner beans and cucumber plants.
If you look at the nearest tray the lettuce making an appearance, the far trays are tomatoes but they take a bit longer to show.
During this time of year it’s a really busy time for our garden birds.
Laying eggs feeding chicks and then fledglings leaving and wanting to be fed by the parents….mostly!
Here’s a few pictures of our parents and juvenile birds in our garden.
The blue tit adults make about a thousand trips per-day to feed the chicks; this adult is just leaving the nest box.
I love blue tits they look like the punk rockers of the bird world. 🙂
The garden is in full spring colour at the moment and I thought I would post a few photographs of it. 🙂
I took this yesterday, it’s a picture of one side of our small front garden. The tulips have all come out in spectacular reds and whites, we have hyacinths of various colours and the daffodils are still just hanging on too! 🙂
Yesterday afternoon we had a rare but welcome visitor to our garden; it was rather dreary and pouring with rain, I was actually cleaning my camera (lucky coincidence) and making sure the lens and body were pretty dust-free and clean. All of a sudden I heard a large thump and there on our fence was sat a beautiful Sparrowhawk, it had obviously missed its prey and looked quite dejected in the dreary weather.
I quickly assembled my camera and took a few photographs, not the best but the best I could manage in the short space of time this bird was in the garden on full view.
I was hoping that it would stay in the garden for longer but it then flew into our trees (which are starting to leaf up; good cover for a bird of prey); It stayed up there for about another 15-20 minutes, then flew off. 😦
It took our other birds a good hour to come back to the feeders and start using them again. 🙂
I hope we will see it again this year; although not good for our other little birds that it hunts, its brilliant to see this fantastic bird in the garden. 🙂
Have you any unusual visitors this early on in spring?
This last weekend has been really busy – spring is here! 🙂
Things are moving on at a pace in the garden, flowers are really springing up, vegetable seeds are starting to be planted in seed trays and the blackbirds are singing furiously to proclaim territory and catch a mate. 😀
This is one of many crocus types in my garden, they are delicate and beautiful and a sure sign that the weather is getting warmer when they leap into flower.
Hello, sorry I’ve been away for so long, it has been a very busy time – most of it good! 🙂
The workbench project is something that I have been trying to get around to doing for a long while, but time has been at a premium until last week and I thought I would share what I made.
This first picture is of the space of the old workbench which is on the right of the picture, I started by putting up the back bearer which has been plugged and screwed into the wall and has 3 legs that are also plugged and screwed into the wall to help with weight-bearing.
It’s been a while since I updated you with what’s happening in the garden…… so here goes!
This is Red campion which I seeded about 2 years ago, I thought last year it was growing fast but now it looks amazing down the side of our house. 🙂
It’s that time of year when everything is on the go, coming into bloom and some of the fledglings from different bird species are out of the nest.
I’ve been away for far to long – sorry! I hurt my ankle and getting about was a real pain in the butt. 😦
I have just started to go through some of the photographs I have taken over the last couple of days so I thought a blog was definitely in order. 🙂
Our Blue tits are now entrenched in the box on our conservatory and nesting began (just before I hurt my ankle). They used the fiesta-nesta from CJ Wildlife so much it was quite comical at times, especially some of the positions they would get into. 😀 Continue reading
Twainwall 
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