The swifts air display

It is great to see the swifts and they are in full acrobatic mode now.

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, the swifts that nest ion the house nest door scream low over our front garden because our garden is much higher and we live in a bungalow

High above the swifts catch insects on the wing, then after a while two or three break away from the rest and make low level passes across our garden.

If I sit at te font of our garden, half obscured by the bushes, the swifts continue their low level flying right overhead. If I stood up I could touch them (theoretically) as they scream past.

Every now and then  one would break away from the rest and fly low and silent and then quickly zip up under the eaves to its nest.

Hopefully a few more sunny months to enjoy them before they make their return jpourney back to Africa for the winter.

More bats and fox

I went out to check on the bats and keep an eye out for the fox. The bat did its usual route, flying low over me as before. This time I only saw the bat a couple of times.

I noticed the fox down the alley, criss-crossing from one garden to another. However a chap walked up the track from my end and the fox disappeared. I watched for about 10 minutes and no sign of the fox. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the fox slinking past up the far side of the track. It must have been disturbed by the chap walking up the track and the fox must have crossed through a garden to the road and was now doing a reverse walk up the track from my end

Watching me watching you.

9.30pm and I went out to watch for the bats and fox. Sure enough, the bats were on the wing, again flying a couple of feet above my head as they turned round to fly back up the alley.

Suddenly a dark shape came out of the gloom. It was the fox. As the fox came to the end of the alley it looked out to the road.

It was almost parallel with me now when it noticed me standing behind the wall. It stared at me for about a minute and then sat down and we watched each other across the track.

We watched each other for several minutes before the fox got up and walked back up the track a short way and then sat down on a clump of grass in the middle of the track.

It seemed to think I could not see it. After a couple of minutes the fox crossed to the nearside of the track, past the garages and the other side of the wall where I stood back a short way.

I resisted the temptation to lean over the wall until it had gone past and I photographed it as it past our car.

More Fox

9.50 came and I realised I had not checked on the bats. I decided to check out of our bed room window, as the small side window looks straight up the track.

As I pulled back the curtains I came face to face with the fox. Crouched on our flint wall, about 3 feet away the fox stared at me for about 10 seconds before causally turning around and walking back along the flint wall to the back of the house. His large bushy tail being the last I saw of him. A beautiful creature.

Bats and foxes

Friday evening, 9.30pm and the bat was hunting in the track, again flying as far as our house and turning around and then flying past the house, only to return a few minutes later.

Bat marked by arrow (above) close up (below)

I went out again tonight to watch and sure enough the bat turned up. This time however, I saw 2 flying together. I suspected there might be more than one and this time I had the proff.

The previous days I had watched the bats until about 9.45pm when the activity appeared to stop. I decided to stay out a bit longer to see if they come back.

After about 10 minutes a bat flew back down the track. I watched it fly too and fro for a while.

I had also noticed a shape of a fox further down the track. It was using the track to travel in and out of selected back gardens. Unfortunately when it reached my end of the track, a group of teenagers went past noisily.

Disturbed it turned round and trotted back up the track and disappeared into the darkness

More bats

I saw the bat again last night. This time I deliberately went out looking for it. At about 9.30pm I saw a bat flying across the alley way a couple of times.

About 2 minutes later it flew up the track towards me and out and across the road heading west. It may have been a pipistrelle bat. I tried to photograph is but it was moving too fast, hence the nice blurred picture below.

About 10 minutes later another bat (or the same one) flew up the track and over the roof of our bungalow. Another 5 minutes and I saw a bat fly up the track and across our back garden heading south. I then had to go back inside. I am keen to keep an eye out for them again.

Goldfinches

I was attracted by a goldfinch sitting at the top of the small evergreen on our rockery. I walked past it quite close as I went to the shed and it did not fly away which was unusual.

We get many goldfinches passing through our garden, but they are usually easily disturbed.

I noticed that every now and then it would look down at the ground. I carefully looked out of the utility room window and noticed another, scruffy looking goldfinch in the vegetation on the rockery.

It seemed to be sun bathing. After a while it awkwardly fluttered through the vegetation and started to eat the seeds from the old seed heads.

It then moved on to eating all the seeds from a dandelion head. The adult was behaving as if the one on the ground was a recently fledge chick. It was smaller and scruffier, but it also appeared to have coloured plumage on its face. Young birds develop the red face latter, this one had a reddish, black face markings.

View from the kitchen window. The adult is at the top of the evergreen the youngster is in the seed heads in the foreground.

Goldfinches do produce young by May, but this one seemed too far developed to be a youngster and the cold weather early in the year seems to have put most animals behind in their mating.

The adult bird flew away for a few minutes and I took a closer look at the possible chick. It did not fly away, even though I approached to about 3 feet away. It looked at me but did not move. The ungainly way it was moving earlier and the way it appeared now did suggest a youngster.

I kept an eye on them for several hours during the afternoon as many cats pass through our garden. I managed to keep our cat inside.

Late afternoon and they were both gone.  If anything had happened to the "chick" there would have still been a distraught parent looking for it – so I am assuming it all ended well.