Blue tit

Yesterday, a blue tit sang from the top of the apple tree for about 20 minutes before flying off.

As I crossed the garden this afternoon I noticed a Caterpillar on the step being attacked by black ants. Its always difficult to know what to do in such situations.

I often rescue slow worms and frogs from our cat and even the odd bumble bee that has flown into a spiders web. Would it be fair to deprive the ants of its quarry? I decided not and left them to it.

The caterpillar put up a good fight, curling its body and then flicking straight sending the ants off across the step.

I forgot all about the ants and the caterpillar until later that evening. The ants had managed to subdue the caterpillar and had carried it to the entrance to their nest, beneath the step.

Drizzly day activity

It drizzled with rain yesterday, but I was surprised to see the black female bee still visiting the flowers. She disappeared just before the heavy showers and re-appeared afterwards. A pair of goldfinch were feeding in the apple tree in the garden behind ours.

Another drizzly day and the goldfinches were in the apple tree several times today. At one point, one of the goldfinch spent a long time preening its feathers.

This may be pair considering nesting as they seem to do a fair amount of singing from the same TV ariels, chimney and tree top.

A blue tit crossed from the apple tree to the bird-fat ball hanging at the end of the garden. Anyone who has been following this blog will remember that this was an attempt to encourage birds into the garden. Many birds pass the end of our garden on a flight path but as our garden is shorter they don't come into the garden in large numbers. This has had limited success. The thing with birds and bird feeders is they may take months to discover them and then become a regular feeding stop off. So when you start to pout food out for birds, its worth persevering

I also noticed a chiffchaff foraging in the apple tree. The male blackbird seemed to be collecting food today, possibly for the female if she is on a nest.

Birds in Easthill Park, Portslade Old Village

On the way to the post office I passed through Easthill Park. I took a slight detour to walk through the small wooded area at the north end of the park. The area is small but dense and many birds pass through this area. A small flock of 5 blue tits passed by foraging in the high branches. I also noticed a group of three chaffinch squabbling in the branches just above the leaf litter. Even though I walked slowly, I could not help disturb the occasional blackbird, perfectly camouflaged in the half light of the leaf litter. The first I knew of them was the rattling alarm call as they flew off staying low to the ground. 2 goldfinches were feeding on a few remaining tree seeds high in the branches, probably part of a larger foraging group. I came across a single blue tit preening its feathers (see below).



Blue tit


Goldfinch


Also of note were a pair of robins and 2 thrushes. I caught a glimpse of what might have been a red wing through the branches, but too far off to be sure. Red wing are winter visitors often seen in parks and gardens in very cold weather. It appears that locally they tend to be mainly found in the surrounding countryside and move into parks and gardens for shelter when the weather is very bad. (See also earlier posting Wednesday 30 th January). I also observed a cormorant flying over the park, an unusual sight in Portslade Old Village as we are a fair distance from the sea or any rivers.

On the way back through the park I came across a male blackbird having a wash in a puddle on the path.

Blue tit Foxgloves and Bumble Bee

I saw for the first time a blue tit on the bird feeder at the end of my garden. Its a narrow garden that runs parallel with our bungalow and because its on a corner and steeped back, the bird flight paths take them behind our garden and they rarely visit (other than the big tree that hangs over from a garden behind). This was an experiment to encourage then from their flight path to detour into our garden. While the food has gone down and I have assumed some birds were eating it, this was the first proof it had worked.

My pride and joy in the garden at the moment are two foxgloves I grew from seed two years ago. I managed to keep two of the four going through last year (they don't flower the first year) and they are now looking quite stunning. I noticed a bee visiting this evening (so the flowers won't be around for long). My nan always had foxgloves in her garden when I was young and they were my favourite then.

Blue tits and nest box

As our daughter has been off school on her Spring holidays I have not been back to Easthill Park since the snow. As it was a sunny day I thought I would go and see if there was anything interesting about. There were the usual birds around, both visible or noticeable by their calls. The checked out the bird box near the entrance to the park but did not notice any activity.


However, a pair of blue tits have taken up residence in another box. It took a while to be sure that they were activily using the box, rather than just checking it out.


A blue tit returning to the nest box would take a very round about way of getting to the box (not wanting to give away the location of its nest site to possible predators). At the last moment it would dart in through the hole. When leaving the box the blue tits left quickly, again not wanting to attract attention. Apart from one time during the 30 minutes I watched them, only one bird was in the box at a time. The blue tit outside the box also chased off any other blue tits that came too close.

frozen spawn and nest box

I awoke this morning to discover the pond had frozen during the night. embeded in the ice were the tops of each clump of spawn. The ice was thin, so hopefully it has not caused too much damage. I boilded some water and carefully poured it onto the ice away from the spawn to speed up thawing.

As I came back from taking our daughter to school I stopped to check out the bird box mentioned earlier. After a few minutes a blue tit arrived and entered the nest box. It stayed inside for about 3 minutes before coming out. Another blue tit was near the nest box. Not conclusive evidence that they are nesting, but a good sign.