getting together

birds are busy pairing up ready for the breeding season. Male and female robins look very similar. They pair up in late winter/early spring. The female chases the male until he accepts her but then he cements the relationship by feeding her, often on the ground. Male and female bullfinches are strikingly different and much more secretive. They are described as 'sedentary' and rarely move far from their local patch.

celandine heaven

What tells us when Spring is really here?

It's when the celandines are open everywhere.

more excitement

first it's long tailed tits, and then it's red wings in the paddock. They are another of our winter migrant visitors, and normally they have left for Scandinavia by April. The cold dry weather seems to be upsetting these natural rhythms but enhancing the bird watcher's daily enjoyment.

relativity goes tits up

Our neighbours all report seeing long tailed tits regularly in their gardens but they seem to avoid our feeders (too full of hungry sparrows?) so it was very pleasing to see one (on the frozen apple tree) for the first time today.

two suggested universal laws of nature:-

1. Buy any garden furniture or barbecue equipment after 1st March  and it will rain incessantly until September.

2. Put some fertiliser and weed killer on a grass lawn and it will not rain again for several months.

Clearly these two laws must interact, and this would suggest that you should only buy garden furniture a day or so after fertilising the lawn, or conversely fertilising the lawn several hours after buying garden furniture. This may be one of those higher dimensional problems with a solution in an alternative universe.

idyllic days

some days seem just perfect and today was one of those days, the ducks on the Venterdon duck pond overlooked by a bank of daffodils, primroses and celandine, and (below) a squadron of fieldfares taking off. They are winter visitors and will soon be off to their breeding grounds in southern central Europe.

what shall I eat next

one of my favourite things! The arrival of a female woodpecker in the garden suggests we might see some more soon.