No photos as they are too timid to get close enough, but being treated to goldfinches bringing their young to the feeders this morning. Lots of goldfinch 'chattering' going on!
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
I know what you mean @BobTheGardener, I can always tell when the Goldfiniches are here - their sound is unique, just as the Starlings squabble, the Blackbird has a distinct sound when the cat is prowling around close by etc. We started off with 2 Goldfinches about 5 - 6 years ago, a friend bought us a nyger seed feeder and in two years we had up to 14 Gfinches. now we have multiple families feeding their young - it is wonderful to watch them multiply year after year. However as you say they are very timid birds and will fly fairly quickly if disturbed - maybe that is why they are multiplying so quickly now.
We saw a casualty his morning . We found a dead baby bird (don’t know which ) on the lawn. Checked the cctv and it turns out the mum flew across the garden carrying it and dropped it on the lawn. It may have died beforehand. Who knows. Sad to see but at least I now know that nests are nearby .
Yep, the parents do this when chicks die in the nest. Not too nice to see, of course, but better than letting the chick start to decompose amongst its siblings. We had a bluetit nest in our camera box last year and unfortunately 6 of 11 hatchlings died, after the dad did a runner a few days into feeding (either that, or he came to a sticky end somewhere). It was fascinating (if a little grisly) to watch mum wrestle the dead chicks out of the nest box hole and carry them off - one particularly big one must have taken 10 minutes or more to drag out. Most of them ended up on our next door neighbour's lawn.
Beautiful caterpillars observed feeding on the Purple toadflax. I thought they were mullein moth at first, but mullein moth don’t use purple toadflax as a host plant for their larvae. After a bit of googling it turns out they are the caterpillars of the Toadflax Brocade moth (Calophasia lunula).
No pics or vid unfortunately but today i witnessed the reason why the suet/fat balls in the feeder were disappearing quicker than usual. A Squirrel has worked out the clasp on the top, flipped the lid open and pulled out an entire fat ball. He/she dropped it out, then broke it up into manageable chunks before 'squirreling' them away. Cheek. I've now reinforced the clasp and lid. Lets see if they work that out.
Gardening. The cause of, and solution to, all of my problems.
I'm delighted at the uptake of the bee 'hotels' this year. Drilled logs made five years ago are nearly full this year. Two bought hotels I put out this spring are well in residence - which surprised me. Here is one friend investigating.
Under the hotels I planted some stachys last year (lambs' ears). I had read that the wooliness is beloved by certain bees, including wool carders. I was amazed to see bees gnawing my plants this afternoon. I have very little optimism of any for my ploys actually working. I'm not quite sure why I have such little faith. So many wildlife panaceas see to turn out to be triumph of romance over efficacy. But, lo and behold, they they were.
Well done @Fire I can see that some serious thought has gone into supporting your bees and they and you can enjoy the results of your bee friendly garden.
We are about to have a bee colony in our wildlife field and are looking forward to watching them - from a distance.
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