Watch The Birdie

 

We love our birds and keep them in food all the year around.  Right now the goldfinches are away, but the blackbirds have returned to their winter quarters.  Because the normally reliable crab apple crop was so poor this year we have supplemented their supply with apples and more recently pears (which they love!).  The sparrows have been muted in the cold snap but there are always pigeons, jackdaws and magpies who swing by to mop up the day's supply.  Another bird that has got wise to the congregation js this sparrowhawk.  Just the other day a pigeon was taken and dismembered in our garden leaving feathers al over the place.  Nature in claw and beak!

Fields of Dreams

 The 2020 wildflower meadow has morphed into the 2121 wildflower meadow by the timely amendment and reinstatement of the sign.  The perimeter rope has also been reinstated.  (Two of the four reinstated metal stakes went missing so we are down to a single strand of garden twine stretched between two stakes.  It suffices as a mere suggestion to the council grass cutters of the agreed status of this corner of the park)

The dandelions are currently having their moment. Once they go to seed the seed issue will arise.  Already I am planning a cull of docks.  These dominated the patch before we set it up and are well represented throughout the neighbouring area (as are buttercups).

Back within the bounds of the school garden the nursery class are taking on the "grow your own loaf" challenge.  Here is the designated 'wheat field'

The canes are there temporarily to demarcate a sowing zone for each child.  A net will be deployed once the ears develope.  Those crows will be thwarted this year .

My final field dream come true is captured below. The 'wee bird' on the side of the path is a skylark.

So often heard, but only seen flying, never on the ground.  This encounter was like a dream.

School Loses Staff

Some people never learn.  A year ago the 'grow your own loaf" project failed when the wheat crop was mysteriously flattened.  Could it have been sabotage or was it the birds?  So we tried again this year, with rattly bottles and string stretched between posts that needed to be raised higher and higher as the crop grew.  All was well until the crop started ripening.  The height in the top picture is about 6 inches below the peak a week or so earlier and the grains have been stripped:

I have the evidence that it wasn't crop failure:

 Without the intervention of human force (The school hasn't had pupils since March) those birds have just been waiting.  The jackdaws are top of my list of culprits.  They also love horticultural fleece which they shred and presumably use for nesting material.  Here's one I caught on camera with a beakfull:

They also view labels and leeks and any new planting really,  as a challenge to be tugged out of the ground and discarded.  Oddly the allotments don't suffer from the same birds - It's pigeons there.

At any rate the staff of life will have to wait for another year - and high security.

Rolling Stones permitting, here is the only song to match this campaign:

Dipper

Today I am over the moon because not only have I met a new bird, but I have managed to capture it on film.  It's a dipper!  

This one patrols the burn (stream) that runs along the length of our allotment site and then disappears into a culvert underneath a very busy roundabout.  I made a very poor quality video and the sound on it is even worse, mostly being the traffic. What it does capture though is the dipping that led me to my correct guess as to what it might be.  This has made my day, or even week. Here, technology permitting is the video:

Only one song suggests itself.  And I apologise in advance:

Tunnel Vision - Innocent and Guilty

There is so much happening just now (what with Spring and all) that I am in danger of giving up on my blog. But right now it is raining. So here's a catch up:

Although I've lived in Edinburgh for 3 decades and explored most corners of it I was taken aback to come across this tunnel on the Innocent Railway (now footpath) connecting Duddingston with St Leonards districts of Edinburgh.  It is claimed to be the first railway tunnel in the UK on Edinburgh's first railway and is over 500m long.

Footpath Sign

The name is said to come from the exemplary safety record of the line. Either that or it's picturesque route or sedentary speed.

This is what the tunnel is travelling under:

Holyrood Park Salisbury Crags

If you are up for the ride you can travel through the tunnel at the following link:

Bike Journey Through Innocents Railway Tunnel 

and if you are keen on that sort of thing you can also travel back in time to do it by train at the following link:

Innocents Train 1968



Back at the plot I was mightily disappointed when I dug up the second of two drainage pipes planted with horseradish a couple of years ago.  Instead of a thick stem I got two foot of spaghetti strands:

A single six inch thong has been planted up in a tall container in the hope that a richer mixture might produce a better result by this autumn.

While I'm at it here is a snap of a guilty female sparrowhawk that appeared in our garden on Saturday.  It is standing on a pigeon it has just killed on our lawn and taken to a quiet corner of the garden.

And here's the nervous sparrows keeping an eye out for the intruder from the relative safety of a hedge.

On one previous occasion a sparrowhawk did a divebomb raid on the same hedge and made off with a sparrow, upsetting all who witnessed it as we were gathered around the table by the window at the time.

Innocents JCC poem/song