Thursday 28 June 2012

Caught Red Handed and a Crazy Place to Build a Nest - Birds!

Wednesday was a mostly dull and humid day. The sun made an appearance in the afternoon and it was enough to produce our warmest day of the month with the temperature reaching 25.1°C.

On the plot this week during a coffee break we heard a blackbird noisily clucking amongst our red currants. The short video shows exactly what was going on.



Apologies for the quality of the video but my camera insisted on focusing on the netting rather than where the action was. The young blackbird took cover in our nearby apple trees no doubt planning another smash and grab on our redcurrants.

Last Friday I blogged about the virtues of a backup rain gauge. After wood pigeon problems with my main weather station, my reserve gauge, which resides in an open spot on the wall by our new pebble garden now has its own bird issue.
The gauge can be seen to the top right hand corner of this picture at the end of the wall. It’s been there over 12 months with no problems. Then this morning something odd. I found grill to the top of the collection funnel was on the steps next to the wall.
It seemed a bit odd as it hadn't been windy and severe winter gales hadn’t dislodged it in the past. I picked it up to replace it and was then surprised by what I saw in the rain gauge funnel.
It appears that a bird may have deliberately removed the cover and made a start at building a nest. Seems a little late for nest building but anyone got any better ideas? 

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