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News

Feathered Friends

Published: 20th January 2014

There is a new visitor to my garden, a female Greater Spotted Woodpecker. I have seen her three times, flying in from the trees behind the top lawn and surveying the garden from up high in the Walnut tree. She is very nervous and warily approaches the hanging nuts and fat block. Finally today she made it to the fat block and spent a good few minutes feeding and I was thrilled by her achievement! Ironically I was only commenting recently to my sister when visiting her beautiful house by the river, that she gets a more varied feathered visitor to her garden.

The normal visitors to my garden are the Sparrows, House and Tree, who comically chatter and mingle in their daily feeding from the bird table and feeders. They amuse me as they dart between the nuts and seeds, lining up on the gutter and in the bushes nearby, like children in a playground. There are also two ringed doves who elegantly perch on the summerhouse, looking a treat, one holding back whilst the other feeds. In contrast two fat pigeons clumsily arrive, flopping off the outhouse roof, and shuffling about under the feeders. Sometime ago one of them made a daring attempt to try to land on the hanging bird table, which ended in failure because of its size versus the inadequate space to rest! So I have lodged an off cut of wood on top of an old chimney pot to provide them a more secure table and landing site, thus ensuring equality within the feeding stations!

It never ceases to amaze me, how much joy and entertainment I get from watching these feathered friends from my studio window, and now as if by appointment two Long Tailed Tits have also arrived, with their little badger heads bobbing about as they peck from the hanging nuts. Have they been around all this time and it’s only my recent sibling visit that has opened my eyes to seeing them? Like a design when I get stuck I turn it around and look from the other side, and it always opens up a whole new view!

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