I've just witnessed a battle between Mike the magpie and Colin the crow. It was like the Battle of Britain overhead, Spitfire v Messerschmitt. I think they both crash landed.
Meg was rather good at catching them & leaving them on the back step. I first met one when I got out of the car one night to open the gates and one attached itself to my tights.
Sitting here I can see a couple of pigeons billing and cooing in an large viburnum about 6 feet from the kitchen window. They have been visiting for a few days now, and are obvious thinking about building a nest.
I was going to leave them too it, but have just realised the nest will be over my wheelie bins! I shall have to keep going out there for a day or two to make them fly off.
Pigeons are not very good at building nests. One year they put a few sticks on the Sky disc arm support. It collapsed in the wind and two babies met their end. My daughters were traumatised.
The pigeons have been gathering sticks for quite a while here and they seem to be “at it” all the time. 😳 They’ve certainly got a lot of trees and bushes to choose for their nests though.
A few weeks ago I dropped one of the counting rings I use for keeping track of how many laps I do around the patio. It bounced off the edge into the groundcover. I searched but couldn't find it. Today it was sitting on one of the patio slabs. I can only think that a bird found it while rooting around the Campanula and spat it out
Despite a lot of shooing from both sides of the fence they are determined to build a nest, so we are letting them get on with it. I have moved the wheelie bins for obvious reasons.
It is quite entertaining as they have chosen a fairly open patch in the bush and I get a birds-eye view from the kitchen and the sofa, of all the regular comings and goings. Hubby brings wifey twigs, they have a “cuddle” () and he’s off again. Like most builders, work seems to end around 3:30pm. In fairness I think hubby needs a good rest after all the days “cuddles” (), which probably start as soon as it gets light. I think Mother Nature will probably rule over the outcome. A number of squirrels around, not to mention the kites and crows. However, that would be an issue wherever they nested.
I have many more birds in the garden this year, I think due to the demise of Millie rather than the covid affect. Boots is treated with distain by the wildlife. I’m fairly sure the one and only mouse I saw him with a while back had met its fate originally via Millie. He is 7 now and has never bought anything into the house, that may well change if a baby pigeon falls from the nest!
We had pigeons nesting in the hedge at the bottom of the garden a couple of years back, the result being a young bird that I think I shared the photo of here before.
We've had wild rabbits, grey squirrels, white squirrels, mallard ducks, falcons, hawks, and wild black turkeys in the courtyard of our apartment and sometimes on the patio.
I inherited a very long thick leylandai hedge which runs the length of the garden which I have to have pruned and reduced in height every year. There are two pairs of black birds nesting in it. 🙂 I also watched two blue tits having great fun this morning picking buds off the oak tree and the squirrels also enjoy nibbling the buds and berries off other shrubs. At this rate, I’ll have no leaves to sweep up and no plants left either.
I inherited a very long thick leylandai hedge which runs the length of the garden which I have to have pruned and reduced in height every year. There are two pairs of birds of colour nesting in it. 🙂 I also watched two blue tits having great fun this morning picking buds off the oak tree and the squirrels also enjoy nibbling the buds and berries off other shrubs. At this rate, I’ll have no leaves to sweep up and no plants left either.