And other stories from the garden
May 19th, 2009 by Chris
The blue tit chicks all fledged at around 7.00am this morning, 20 days after hatching. That’s a day longer in the nest than last year, but still four days earlier as the eggs hatched 5 days earlier than in 2008.
A good few of them seemed rather reticent to go, but they all got the hang of it in the end. Interestingly, the parents carried on cleaning up after the chicks had gone. Could they be working up to a second brood?
May 19th, 2009 by Chris
Before we move on to the main news of the day here, for the delight and delectation of our nephews, is some poo…
(recorded on 16 May 2009)
May 12th, 2009 by Chris
The chicks are looking like real mini blue tits now, rather than little ETs. Feathers are well developed and wings are being stretched and fluttered. They’ve still got huge gobs though.
May 10th, 2009 by sophie
The chicks are changing fast now. It’s hard to believe that only 11 days ago they looked like embryos! But, like last year, there’s another greedy so’n’so who thinks he can swallow a grub the size of his head without consequences.
May 10th, 2009 by Chris
Time for an update on the rest of the garden…
The mini-meadow is still not a blaze of beautiful wild flowers, but it’s a lot better than it was last year. There’s clearly a lot of different species of something in there—it’s just that it’s mostly leaves at the moment, so I’ve no idea what they are. Not that I’m much better at identifying things when their in flower. We’ve had some campion, and now have a small purple geranium like thing (herb robert?).
There’s a fair bit of yellow rattle (I think) about to come into flower, which, since it parasitises grass should help keep the grass under control and let the flowers through in future.
Our pond is looking rather sad. More of a muddy hole than a pond really. It’s just so long since it rained. We are hotly debating whether or not the last bits of water remaining in our 1000 litre rain tank should be used to top it up. There was some promising looking rain forecast for Tuesday / Wednesday earlier today, but the forecasters seem to have changed their minds again, so there doesn’t seem to be any reprieve in sight.
Sophie planted out sunflowers and sweet peas yesterday. I’m planning on extending the automatic irrigation system to include my attempt to grow grapes in the front garden, although with our storage tank almost empty it’s a bit academic really. Please let it rain soon!
May 8th, 2009 by Chris
We captured some wonderfully entertaining video for you today. The female has been busy on her housekeeping, crawling headfirst under the chicks, waving her tail at the camera whilst chicks popped out from under her left right and centre.
Unfortunately during it’s long and tortuous journey from the video recorder to the internet it got deleted, so you’ll have to make do with this…
May 1st, 2009 by Chris
We’re pretty sure they’re are eight chicks now. This little chap doesn’t seem to be too keen on being sat on though.
We have chicks! Looks like six of the nine eggs in the Blue Tit Big Brother house have hatched so far, five days earlier than they did last year. The female (is it Karma?) is still sitting on them most of the time, which can’t be very comfortable for mum or chicks. They’re pretty ugly looking things—all mouth and no feathers yet. The male is popping in with food from time to time, and she makes the odd foray out.
Apr 1st, 2009 by Chris
Another sign that spring is coming. The frilillaries that we planted last autumn have come up around the pond. We noticed them last Friday, but just haven’t had time to get a photograph until now. Here they are…
Hopefully they’ll be more wildflowers to come.
Another sign of spring—we have tadpoles! Some of the frog spawn in the pond is showing definite signs of wiggling. Here is an attempt at some film: