Monday 19 April 2010

Garden Excitement


Today has been a good day. We stayed in again, I am still slightly ill at ease about leaving the house for any prolonged length of time. For reasons I'd rather not go into, that proved a wise decision. Suffice it to say that we're not quite done.....

Anyway, being tied to the house in fine weather is no bad thing, and I rather pleasingly beat my garden day-list record, with a staggering 32 species, including Peregrine and Common Buzzard. The Peregrine was #80 for my Wanstead year list, and only the third I have seen here. It was way to the north of me, and I was confident when I saw it through the bins. I snapped off a few record shots that were sufficient for the Peregrine Guru that is Dave Mo to confirm the ID.


This is one of the local Blackbirds, easily recognised.


In between sky-watching, entertaining children, slaving at the cooker and other odd jobs such as refitting a curtain rail that the children had pulled off the wall, I managed to do something that has been in the planning stages for approximately eight months. It took eight minutes - perhaps my planning was overly involved - sticking a previously collected branch in a bucket of rubble, and then moving said bucket to underneath the bird feeders. Would the local avifauna view this a nice perch? I retreated a few metres, to inside the house with the door open, camera poking out, and within half an hour a fearless Woodpigeon had arrived, followed soon after by an equally tough Collared Dove. No doubt these will be the only two species that ever use it, but for now I'm happy.



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