Just a few observations and thoughts. I have been watching the pair of Dunnocks, a species described by the British Trust for Ornithology as having an “interesting” sex life, elsewhere as promiscuous, polygamous and indulging in “sneaky mating”. They are rather dismissively described by the BTO as a “little brown bird” and by others as rather plain. I beg to differ – they very much have, to my eye, a subtle beauty and patterning. They do sometimes form monogamous partnerships and I venture to assume that for this pair. They are never far apart, within a foot of each other at most when feeding, which is mostly but not entirely on the ground. I have seen them at the feeders though. Yesterday I saw one of them feed the other, twice, which surprised me since they are both adults. This is apparently bonding or courtship behaviour. It was very sweet.
UPDATE: A third Dunnock has appeared, so perhaps they are not being so monogamous after all.
I would like to know more about why some birds only ever feed on the ground. It isn’t about size. Blackbirds are strictly ground only and I can see that the feeders would be tricky for pigeons and doves. The Magpies don’t attempt them either but the Jackdaws absolutely do. Sparrows do a bit of both, the Blue and Great Tits and the finches seem to eat only from the feeders.
I had not previously noticed just how long the Magpies’ tails are. The average is between eight and twelve inches.
On the subject of corvids, one of the members of the badger group trotted out the old myth that crows peck live lambs’ eyes out. This has never been documented. I wish people would check their facts before spreading these concocted tales which are designed to demonise wildlife. See Animal Wild for an account of pictures showing a bird of prey eating a lamb which it was alleged to have killed. The photographer confessed that the images were fake. This was in a post by Chris Loder, MP, for which he was heavily criticised and which now seems to have been withdrawn. This is from Animal Wild:
In England however, they seem hell-bent on obliterating hope. A successful programme of reintroduction of the endangered White-tailed Eagle on the Isle of Wight warmed many hearts. The birds had become extinct in the early twentieth century thanks to poisoning and shooting by gamekeepers. The word ‘gamekeeper’, come to think of it, is in itself a complete giveaway. They are not conservers of nature, they are keepers of ‘game’ (a word which really shouldn’t be used to describe any animal in this day and age), bred to be shot or otherwise murdered for sport by the elite. One of the eagles was found dead and the police became involved. Local conservative MP Chris Loder said that eagles were not welcome in his constituency and that the police shouldn’t waste their time on it. “I don’t want eagles in Dorset, killing our lambs and plaguing our farmers.” Attached to his post were two photographs of an eagle eating a lamb, but the photographer revealed that they were staged: the lamb was dead and the eagle a captive. His election campaign was partly funded by a shooting estate. It is apparently not just predation to which the shoots object, sometimes raptors fly (which is what raptors can do) over causing the birds to scatter, disappointing those who have paid to kill them. Ah well, we can’t have that now, can we?
The result of the investigation was this: “A detailed examination and tests have been carried out on the bird, which were inconclusive, and it has therefore not been possible to confirm that any criminal offence has been committed. While high levels of brodifacoum were detected, it has not been possible to establish whether this was as a result of a deliberate act or due to secondary rodenticide poisoning. As a result, no further police action will be taken in relation to this report.”
There has been at least one other further poisoning.
I have had to do almost nothing at all in the garden so far this year – no mow until at least the end of May of course, but instead of plucking off last year’s dieback from the ferns for example, I have let them be, let nature do what it does. There must be an evolutionary reason – my favourite fern (and ferns are pretty much my favourite plants) looked completely dead, but green sprouted soon enough and it is growing at an astonishing rate.
The image at the top of this post is an extreme close-up of a tiny fern leaf using a new gadget/toy (I love gadgets), a cheap as chips microscope which can be plugged into a phone or PC (although I was not prepared to make the security compromises insisted on by MS Windows to continue with the latter). The quality is so-so, but for under £20 not so bad.
A wonderful word entirely new to me in today’s cryptic crossword in The Guardian: pleach, which means to intertwine tree branches.
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