Garden birds

rogerjolly

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Joined
Aug 12, 2017
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Age
80
Location
Yorkshire
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Dear Mr and Mrs Blackbird,

You will notice that I have had to net the strawberry bed to protect it from your activities. I would not mind at all if you took just a few of them and ate the whole fruits. But you have the terrible habit of having a single peck at each one of vast numbers of them.

By way of recompense I have put out a mound of pine needle mulch. You are very welcome to attack it with your usual vigour in the hunt for creepy-crawlies and snail eggs.

Also, in this hot dry spell, I will renew my efforts to keep the bird bath topped up with water so you will have plenty to drink and to wash your feathers in. You do make the job almost a full time one because you splash the water about all over the place with the same gay abandon that you use to demolish mulch heaps.

Kind regards,

Roger.
 
Dear Mr and Mrs Blackbird,

You will notice that I have had to net the strawberry bed to protect it from your activities. I would not mind at all if you took just a few of them and ate the whole fruits. But you have the terrible habit of having a single peck at each one of vast numbers of them.

By way of recompense I have put out a mound of pine needle mulch. You are very welcome to attack it with your usual vigour in the hunt for creepy-crawlies and snail eggs.

Also, in this hot dry spell, I will renew my efforts to keep the bird bath topped up with water so you will have plenty to drink and to wash your feathers in. You do make the job almost a full time one because you splash the water about all over the place with the same gay abandon that you use to demolish mulch heaps.

Kind regards,

Roger.

The poor baby snails! Oh Roger, I'm astonished! (all in jest in case that's not obvious) :p
 
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A Tale of Two Robins
(Sorry, almost long enough to have been Charles Dickens novel.)

The European robin is only four inches or so long. The orange/red colouration starts at the upper chest and continues as far as the eyes and above the beak. The eggs are off white coloured with reddish-brown blotches.

The English robin is identical to the European in every way with the single exception of its behaviour towards humans. In some Mediterranean countries there has been a sad tradition of trapping and shooting small birds. This has resulted in their being extremely shy of people.

The UK countries are renowned for their love of birds. English robins come within inches of the spade or trowel of a gardener in their search for disturbed invertebrates. Hence they have a reputation of being very friendly.



I grew up on a farm in Canada and so knew the American robin well. They often nested in our barn. This robin is twice the length of the English bird. The colouration covers a much larger area from the legs to the throat but does not reach the head. The eggs are a lovely pale blue colour.

Many years ago we had a trip to New Brunswick to meet my long lost relatives. My wife was in the kitchen with my lovely Aunt Kate and, looking through the window, asked what the bird was she could see hopping about on the grass.

“That’s a robin,” was the reply with Aunt Kate being somewhat bewildered at someone not recognising such a well-known and obvious bird.
“That’s not a robin.”
“That IS a robin,” came the immediate response with some considerable consternation.

We often reminisce about this mutual misunderstanding as we work in our garden closely accompanied by a cheeky little redbreast.

Roger.
 
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The UK countries are renowned for their love of birds. English robins come within inches of the spade or trowel of a gardener in their search for disturbed invertebrates. Hence they have a reputation of being very friendly.
 
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