Skip to main content

The Pheasant Returns


He was back again today, about mid morning. Scraping around the feeders to uncover scraps made a bit of a mess of the lawn. After taking a drink he wandered down the garden and settled down in a sheltered corner by the lilace for a couple of hours. I looked at one point and the cat was sitting by the window, the pair of them totally ignoring each other. When I opened the window to let the cat in he crouched down but made no other attempt to move.

It finally rained today, a nice change from the cold dry north easterlies that we have been having. Gentle light rain which soaked the ground nicely but did very little to refill the water butt. Not much else in the way of birds in the garden this morning, the wood pigeon cleaned up most of the ground feeding tray again and the squirrel is still cleaning how the sunflower hearts, also ignored by the cat. Actually I have never seen her take a bird but she is a keen mouser but not keen enough to save all the bulbs that I had in the lean-to.

I noticed that the goldfinches always use the highest available ports on the nyjer seed feeder. Trouble is now that the bottom ports have clogged. When it next needs refilling I will have to take it apart and clean it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finally

 Health issues mean that I haven't been paying any attention to my blogs but I was roused from my afternoon cup of tea today but a most unholy racket. Yes the parakeets have finallyarrived in my part of Chesham with a flock of five in the tree in my neighbours garden. It had to come eventually as they have been in Rickmansworth for years. Not much else happening apart from the usual circling kites and the occasional buzzard. I haven't seen anything eating my rowan berries but the tree is being steadily stripped. Usually its a mix of wood pigeons and blackbirds. Collared doves seem to be back in this end of the village as I saw a pair while waiting for the bus this week. They used to be garden regulars but hadn't seen any near the house for years.

Harvest

The arable fields between Ley Hill and Latimer have been harvested over the last couple of days. This morning I saw a group of yellowhammers in the middle of the road by a field gate. From the look of things they were eating spilled grain. Instead of flying into the hedgerow they flew away from me along the road at windscreen height. I haven't seen much else recently apart from a distant glimpse of a partridge and the occasional red kite.

Returning to the Garden

High summer and early autumn is always a quiet time for birds in my garden. I no longer feed after my summer holiday as I have ended up throwing away far to much mouldy fat or seed. Normally I would wait until November before putting the feeders back out but a party of long tailed tits appeared in the front garden today so I think that it might be worth while trying a single fat bar for the moment. For the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of roadside signs saying "beware of deer" in places where I wouldn't normally see them. Last weekend I decided that they might be justified when I encountered a herd of roe deer in the road between Ley Hill and Latimer. While muntjac are seen often enough the roes tend to be shy and this was only the third time that I have had a good look at some in all the years that I have lived here.