Newly Fledged Birds

Because my home is located on a hill; well the whole village is, in fact the whole landscape is, personally I think this is a spot on the earth that god forgot to iron. Anyway, as my home is located on a hill the bottom of the back gate is four feet or so higher than the back door, so when on Friday night I was refilling the bird feeders I spotted a set of paws going past my back gate. So I went to investigate. I could not see the animal that had passed but as I was laying on the ground looking under the cars parked in the back lane, one of the daughters of a near neighbour pulled up and parked her car.

Thinking I may be injured she dashed across to see if I was all right, phone in hand ready to call an ambulance. I reassured her that I was fine, and started to explain my odd behaviour, when the Fox that I was looking for re-emerged. Even though my camera was just inside the yard, all I could do was stay still and we both remained quiet as we watched the fox look at us. He, from my prostate position I could see it was a dog fox, and slowly walked away. She was delighted with the sighting, as was I, and we had a little chat.

I knew this young woman by sight but other than a greeting on passing in the street, I had never spoken to her. While I have never hidden my enthusiasm for the local wildlife, she (and she is not the first) told me that I was subject to a number of rumours regarding what other people felt was my odd behaviour, but she clearly could see why I was frequently seen looking through binoculars or a camera. While there is part of me that is sick of hearing all that crap, slowly people are realising that I am not watching other people but the natural world.

She was delighted to see the Fox herself and it had been several years since she saw one. I told her that I frequently go watching the Badgers, and she did ask if I would take her one day. But with the way that rumours and gossip happens in this village, I said I could see the rumour mill working overtime if I were to do that. I said I would think about it and suggested that she think of someone to be her chaperon if I did take her.

The funniest part of talking to her though was that a number of people have seen me going out or returning in the night. Now these are people who are returning from night clubs or nights on the town. For them to out at two or three in the morning there is no problem, but when they see me, its a different story, I must be up to no good, as I am sober.

Now I know that there has been problems here in the village, in the past, with Drugs and Under age Drinking as well as other social problems, but just because another citizen does not keep to the normal periods of activity does not mean they are involved in something suspicious. What amuses me, in an ironic way, is that when the problems were at their greatest, none of these people that are gossiping about me were doing anything to stop the criminality that was going on.

The following day, while in the kitchen, I saw at the feeder a whole flock of sparrows. More than I have ever seen before. I soon realised that about five or six of the ten or more that were there were newly fledged. The give away was the wing fluttering begging for food from the parents. So it looks like “Café Mouse” has helped feed another family. Then when I had finished doing the washing up, sorry about swearing there, and was making some coffee, I saw four young starlings. Again they can be distinguished from the parents as the feathers are duller and lack the sheen as well as them not having the spots on the plumage. Another family my feeders have aided.

Then even latter, after having had to re-affix the feeder after the jackdaws had pulled it down, smart birds are those corvids, I saw the pair of collard doves. Over the past three weeks I had only seen one in the yard. There had been a collard dove that had been taken by a raptor, so I was worried that I had lost one of the pair. Now I have no way of telling if this was the regular pair, but I hope it is. As they clearly were gathering seed to feed young. That means there are eight species that have used my back yard café to raise chicks this year.