Birds

Although the birds have shunned the bird-box we built (to a specification which apparently doesn't match any known species of bird), we do have quite a few birds visiting the garden. In fact, they often come and sit on the fence in front of my porthole so I can see them when I'm working.

Fat little brown bird on a fence post

In the season when the blueberries are fruiting, I try to suppress my fury when they gobble up the unripe berries, but at other times they represent a charming diversion. A big black rook is always impressive. They're very big up close and they seem to be the most wary of the visiting birds, so you have to keep still if you don't want them to fly off right away.

Crowstorm

There are huge numbers of crows in our neighbourhood, and they're especially active after the rice harvest. They form swirling storms that fill portions of the sky, and they're always fighting with each other and hassling the herons and buzzards that share the same airspace. While it's really none of my business, I sometimes feel that it's all a bit much and somehow offensive to propriety and something ought to be done about it. At these times, I'm sometimes driven to look again at my link for crow recipes. How one would go about gathering the main ingredient without a shotgun is a little beyond my wit however.

A few weeks ago, a pair of woodpigeons visited. Woodpigeons are not at all wary, and happily sit around very comfortably in full view. Their colours perfectly matched the autumn tableau outside my window.

Woodpigeons

I suppose I could spoil my casual enjoyment of the birds by vowing to photograph everything I see and getting a bird book to identify everything correctly. Somehow I don't think I will though.