June is Bursting Out in Style

Saw the funniest thing this morning - Dunnock Derriere!

On the garden path, this juvenile dunnock AKA hedge sparrow or hedge warbler, was either constipated or pretending to offer mum a faecal sack. Mum tried half a doz. times with a careful prodding at her flitting youngsters aloft rear-end. Nothing! Incredibly, she took a few steps back, then ran at it speedily kicking its bum, well you can imagine what such a fright did! :)

Please share your own funny wildlife tales.

Blue feelings about my tits. It was all going so well, they’d raised a half doz. chicks even though one parent had a club claw which didn’t affect its industriousness. Suddenly it went AWOL, only 5 to 7 days off the whole brood fledging. Eventually four out of six left, which isn't uncommon, but being as there was only one parent and no return visits for over six daylight hours and a very cold evening following, I decided to intervene.

In all my years adoring blue tits I’ve never done such a thing, and probably wouldn’t again, nature itself is a far better custodian, and perhaps significantly less cruel than our best intentions or best will in the world can often impart. That said, my sincerest applause to those of you whose personal testimonies inspiringly contradict.

I read pages of stuff about raising these two orphans, who were about a day or three off fledging; often an additional result of a single parenting. Understanding that I’d need to be committed for at least a further two weeks prior to releasing them, just as their parents continue looking after their brood before they fend for themselves in the trees. Hence the gap between many of our tits fledging and our seeing them again on garden feeders – they’re off gorging the family on juicy twenty course lunches.

So in an old bird cage borrowed from next door, Pinky & Perky survived their first night out of the cold yet alone, well apart from a small cuddly toy. At dawn, they had me up & out searching for food (when last did I get up this early!). Perhaps I should have hospitalised them but having took responsibility I felt obliged to do my best.

Despite feeding well right through the day; maggots, ant larva, a range of creepy crawlies with a tiny bit of chopped up wriggly worm moistened in distilled water at regular intervals, they toed-up before their second morning.

The episode only lasted 24 hours but still left me with mixed thoughts; mistakes I must have made, the error of intervention, and arrogance believing that I could realistically offer hope, proper sustenance and a chance of life. Now believing that it was probably less cruel to let nature take its course as I did with the mice, sorry!

Memories! Aged 10 I found my first dead blue tit on the side of the road on route to school. I kept it in a matchbox for nearly a week until aroma & beetles told me it didn’t belong there and buried it. 11 I found a kitten, and hid/kept it in our indoor coal bunker for a week before mum discovered it - we actually kept it. 12 I found a dead bat (Pipistrelle) at school, at the time I wondered if it was a new species of flying mouse. Its last memory was probably munching a fly before lights-out courtesy of a telegraph wire it didn’t see coming. 9 I recall having kits (baby rabbits) in a cage one holiday, who surprisingly escaped one day, at least that’s the story we were fed by the gamekeeper who had given them to us. Ah, such juxtaposition between help and harm.

On upbeat note, Blackbirds appear to be sitting on their second clutch of eggs 8 feet up in evergreen clematis. I never saw their first brood, which I now sadly consider may have been predated by carrion crow. My earlier reckoning was they'd fledged, hopping about in quieter gardens nearby, but I ought to have seen them by now – nadda!

Lastly, allow me direct you to a blog of similar interest, less wordy, better pictures, full of heart despite being unwell and a blogger with a clear focus on life! http://mysnowdoniagarden.blogspot.com/

Springwatch is getting into its stride and a complete delight to follow; Halcyon Diaries is just idyllic, but what a Jessie James! (Irony of kingfisher tale =); And sadly Monty Halls' Great Hebridean Escape concluded.

With healthier & wiser respect for natures battle and triumph - TPH