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The snow departed more than a week ago*, but I wanted to share these photos of unusual visitors to our garden who appeared over the course of that long cold spell. I do believe our feeders kept our local population alive during it, and also provided a much appreciated welcome to the arrivals who’d been overwintering elsewhere. We don’t normally see the following birds in our garden. They only come to us when their need is great.
A wagtail. This one was with us for the entirety of the cold spell, and got in frequent arguments with the robins.
Two starlings pecking at the remnants of birthday cake** while a robin inexplicably leaps over them. The last of the cake had been disposed of elsewhere, but an enterprising mammal [we reckon we have both a resident rat and a hedgehog] dragged it out.
Missel thrush floofed up against the cold. I’m pretty sure there’s a thriving population of thrushes in our hedgerows, but we don’t see them often. They were willing to brave the garden during the week of sub-zero temperatures.
We also spotted a fieldfare and a green finch, but I didn’t get any decent photos of them.
* I prepared this post yesterday, blithely thinking that because the temperatures had been in the double digits (Celsius) for the past few days, spring was finally around the corner. Guess what it did today. That's right. IT SNOWED. -.-
** Yes, this was the legendary rainbow cake selected by Humuhumu for her Daddy's birthday. We all got a little sick of it so there was a small piece left over that we forgot and then found after it had become thoroughly dried out.
A wagtail. This one was with us for the entirety of the cold spell, and got in frequent arguments with the robins.
Two starlings pecking at the remnants of birthday cake** while a robin inexplicably leaps over them. The last of the cake had been disposed of elsewhere, but an enterprising mammal [we reckon we have both a resident rat and a hedgehog] dragged it out.
Missel thrush floofed up against the cold. I’m pretty sure there’s a thriving population of thrushes in our hedgerows, but we don’t see them often. They were willing to brave the garden during the week of sub-zero temperatures.
We also spotted a fieldfare and a green finch, but I didn’t get any decent photos of them.
* I prepared this post yesterday, blithely thinking that because the temperatures had been in the double digits (Celsius) for the past few days, spring was finally around the corner. Guess what it did today. That's right. IT SNOWED. -.-
** Yes, this was the legendary rainbow cake selected by Humuhumu for her Daddy's birthday. We all got a little sick of it so there was a small piece left over that we forgot and then found after it had become thoroughly dried out.
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(Also, I just noticed your custom comment text. Hee! :D)
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(Thank you for appreciating the comment text! Not many people do. :D)
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(Er, this is meant to express admiration at your birb-identifying abilities - mine are a bit shit, and I had to look the coal tit up.) Also, good cameras or binoculars are really helpful, particularly when trying to identify yet another Small Brown Bird.*
* Sometimes even my father, who has an encyclopaedic memory, keen eyes, and a deep love for spotting things, has been known to give up and go, "I dunno. It's a Small Brown Bird of some sort, and it's not having the decency to sit next to anything with obvious scale, or where we can see how it's sitting, and it's too far away to hear if it's making any identifying noises. It's a Small Brown Bird."
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Thrushes. Thrushes are particularly difficult Small Brown Birds to identify.
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