Steady as you go, B.Y. 2020

[Peter Connan]

Fantastic! 

[Dave Williams]

11 hours ago, pedro maia said:

Another garden owl, it’s not fair, this all the wildlife in my garden:

 

 

 

It's my long lost cousin!!

[Dave Williams]

Still struggling to get the garden birds to co-operate in my break time from weeding the garden. Here's a flyover Raven to keep me ticking over.

 

147)Raven

Raven by Dave Williams, on Flickr

[Dave Williams]

Today's lockdown bird is the humble Wood Pigeon. We have lots visiting the garden and I wouldn't mind but they crap everywhere( as demonstrated in this photo too!). What sort of animal defecates in their bath ? Weird!! Keeps the tally moving along though!

 

148)

Common Wood Pigeon  Columba palumbus by Dave Williams, on Flickr

Edited April 10, 2020 by Dave Williams

[Galana]

31 minutes ago, Dave Williams said:

What sort of animal defecates in their bath ?

Goldfish?

[Dave Williams]

24 minutes ago, Galana said:

Goldfish?

 

Mmmmm.... ours ended up down the toilet anyway

[lmSA84]

Lovely Tawny Owl! It feels like a decade since I even heard one -

[Peter Connan]

5 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

 What sort of animal defecates in their bath ? Weird!! 

 

I trust you are being facetious?

[michael-ibk]

Where are all these garden Owls coming from? Great sighting!

[Dave Williams]

Believe it or not I have been busier since "lockdown" than I have in years. A new challenge has been to get the garden looking good again and for added interest, plant some vegetables too. Add in an hours walk every day and there isn't a lot left. The hours seem to vanish so although I'm seeing my garden birds I'm not spending a lot of time photographing them. This might change as we progress of course, there doesn't seem to be any prospect of the lockdown restrictions being lifted for many weeks to come. I am almost resigned to the fact that travel, especially foreign travel may have to wait until next year now.

Anyway, meantime I'm plodding on with the BY and today's offering is the rather dull Dunnock. We have several around the garden and where they lack in appearance they make up in singing ability! One of the most vocal garden birds we have.

 

149) Dunnock

Dunnock    Prunella modularis by Dave Williams, on Flickr

[TonyQ]

Nice photo @Dave Williams

I don’t think any birds are dull at the moment.....

[xelas]

14 minutes ago, TonyQ said:

I don’t think any birds are dull at the moment.....

 

Spot on, @TonyQ, as my next birds will show 

[Galana]

3 hours ago, TonyQ said:

I don’t think any birds are dull at the moment.....

I will take anything as the most beautiful bird in the world at the moment.

[Dave Williams]

A landmark day today and what better than the delightful Blue Tit. If it was a rarity like say, a Bluethroat would be in this part of the world, I'd be salivating! However, during my gardening I have discovered 3 nests of what is the most numerous garden visitors we have...I think.

My BY is becoming more of a lockdown diary and I'd be interested to know how lockdown is affecting everyone else too. We have a very big garden so we are lucky, however, I have no obvious spot for cultivating 'interesting' things. Claire is the garden fan so she's already planted bushes, flowers,and herbs in the places available so I have now decided to use pots to grow the things I consider worth doing. Vegetables! I knew those plastic containers fatballs  are sold in would come in useful one day! The raised beds in an old greenhouse base ( ours was the gardener's cottage to the huge place next door) are now renovated and planted with beans too.

 

Not only do the Blue Tits enjoy the security of the holes in the walls as safe nesting locations, we also have some not so deadly reptiles too.

Slow Worm by Dave Williams, on Flickr

They send Claire running when she finds one as she's tending her borders!!

Anyway, here's todays offering at last. Tomorrow I'll share a bit more about things that are keeping me busy!

Stay safe and keep your distance everyone!

Happy Easter.

150)

Eurasian Blue Tit   Cyanistes caeruleus by Dave Williams, on Flickr

Edited April 12, 2020 by Dave Williams

[xelas]

Very busy Blue Tit! And very busy Dave .

[Galana]

I could cope with lockdown better if I had the chance to watch Slowworms in my garden. Never seen one in British Isles. My only sightings were strangely in Slovenja. Maybe it could be re-named SLOWvenja?

(Up in Bohinj @xelas on my own and with Tomaz when we went looking for wolves if you are wondering.)

[TonyQ]

Blue Tits are beautiful birds indeed.

What a wonderful garden you have @Dave Williams. A slow worm - amazing!

[PeterHG]

Good to see some photos of your garden and its inhabitants. And a special one at that! Slow worm seems such an unflattering name for this beautiful creature. Happy Easter to you and yours, too, Dave!

[Galana]

19 minutes ago, PeterHG said:

Slow worm seems such an unflattering name for this beautiful creature.

Neither slow nor a worm. I wonder if our european neighbours have given it a better title?

[PeterHG]

16 minutes ago, Galana said:

I wonder if our european neighbours have given it a better title?

No, not really I'm afraid. It's called 'Hazelworm' in Dutch. It is thought the 'hazel' part refers to the colour of the 'worm' resembling the brown of the Hazel tree.

[TonyQ]

“ Wurm” as used in Old English used to be applied to any crawling creature, and in particular to reptiles. (Sometimes wyrm)

In many legends, dragons are called a Giant Wurm.

Slow is from Old English “sla”

[Dave Williams]

Impressed my BY is opening new avenues!!! keep it up folks.

 

[michael-ibk]

Happy Easter Dave! It´s been ages since I´ve seen a Slow Worm ("Blindwurm" here in German), they used to be very common when I was a kid.

[Dave Williams]

Today's addition is the Common Blackbird of which we have several pairs nesting in the ivy of the garden walls. This bathtime visit was proving difficult trying to get the right exposure when the white wall in the background was in bright sun and the birdbath was in the shade so I tried playing with Photoshop, a tool I know very little about using as you can see! 

151)Blackbird

Common Blackbird   Turdus merula by Dave Williams, on Flickr

 

 

I have a more interesting garden wildlife project on the go at the moment though. For the last few weeks I have been using a trail cam to record the now nightly visits of a Badger. using peanuts I'm starting to lure him in to a position where hopefully in due course I can photograph him using my DSLR from the cover of the house. That won't happen for a good month or two yet as I need some decent light to achieve it and currently his visits are between 10.30pm  -2.30 am although last night he arrived early at 9.37pm and made two further visits, one at around 4.00am, the latest recorded yet. It's very satisfying to be able to engineer the photographs although no doubt some will say the badger is getting habituated, I shouldn't feed etc etc. There is no doubt though he's getting used to being near the house when it's obviously occupied with lights going on and off etc. I have also started leaving the outside lights on too but as yet have failed to spot him from the window, there again, I'm not spending much time trying when the trail cam does it the easy way!!

Badgercam by Dave Williams, on Flickr

Edited April 13, 2020 by Dave Williams

[Galana]

1 hour ago, Dave Williams said:

no doubt some will say the badger is getting habituated, I shouldn't feed etc etc

Not me. If fishermen can bait hooks and 'swims' then photographers can bait trail cams. Try some smoked mackerel five feet up that tree.