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!

A Good Year For The Birds

I just have to share crab apple harvest this year.   These orange apples, on a now leafless tree, are too small to make jelly from.  We leave them for the birds - who devour them when other food becomes scarce in mid winter.  I am sure they get drunk on them because once they get started there is no limit to the antics they get up to as they tightrope/softrope their way along the branches.  Blackbirds and pigeons are the most enthusiastic, but these house sparrows on the nearest bush seem to be keeping a custodial eye on them.

Just in case you are wondering, yes the blue lines are our washing line.

Catch Us If You Can

We have a colony of house sparrows who hang out in our garden hedge, particularly on sunny afternoons.

There are over a dozen of them but it is difficult to capture them on "film". So when they ventured up to the highest branches it was my chance.

I wasn't the only one to notice.  The sparrows disappeared in a trice when this chap showed up.

Postscript. The sparrowhawk turned up again the next day when I was out in the garden and dive bombed me on his way out.  I couldn't believe he would attack me but still found myself flapping my arms just to be on the safe side.  A fearsome sight.

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