And seeing visitors

 Photo: RSPB website

Rather exciting to see one of these walking across the lawn this afternoon. It's a ring ouzel, presumably on its way into Britain and heading for the nearby moorland and summer nesting ground. I was hoping to get a photograph of it, but the resident blackbirds were very agressively seeing it off even as I spotted it. The population is in serious decline in here, so I count myself lucky to have had even a fleeting sight.

The jackdaws, meanwhile, are frantically flying in the most bizarre collection of potential nesting material, bits of fluff (deer and dog?), spare feathers - even an unattached pheasant wing, which was proudly conveyed to the nest site. Ten minutes later, it was lying on the lawn - rejected? too heavy to stay put? A little later still, it had disappeared again, replaced, I assumed, but then I saw one of the jackdaws flying away from the nest with it. I'm not sure whether it was a strange bird, poaching, or a disenchanted partner ("It's not hygienic, dear!") Five minutes later, and its proud finder was back again with the wing firmly clutched in its beak. I guess it has now been cemented in!

Watching the neighbours

Jackdaw by soikha

My new neighbours are a very industrious couple. They spend most of the day nest-building, having chosen a desirable site in the ash tree opposite my window, and I can't help watching when I'm supposed to be working. I can't see the nest itself, as it is deep in the ivy I've been threatening to remove - every spring when I decide to start work in the garden, the birds have beaten me to it and I resign myself to waiting until the nesting season is over. Somehow, come the autumn, nothing gets done.

This morning, Cor and Cora (as I am beginning to think of them) are prowling about the lawn collecting clumps of grass mowings, as well as venturing further in pursuit of sticks from around the field margins. Every few minutes they return with beaks full of spiky additions, sometimes flagging under the weight of a particularly choice item. One nearly fell off the branch just now. They are being watched beady-eyed by a pair of wood pigeons, who have previously raised the odd brood in the depths of the ivy (not very sucessfully, the squabs have a distressing tendency to make fatal descents from the heights), and there may yet be some nest-nabbing! Judging by the amount of sparrow activity in the ash tree, there are a number of smaller homes too - that's the excuse for not removing the ivy, it does offer such excellent habitat, though I do worry about the weight of it when the winds are high.

I rather look forward to young jackdaws - they will undoubtedly be noisy, and may be destructive, but I suspect they might prove amusing, if young starlings are anything to go by. The sparrowhawks, by the way, are back as predicted, and telling everyone about it at the top of their voices!