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Not always pretty

This last week has seen quite a variety of activity with the birds visiting my garden. Sorry, I don’t have any new photos to share. Last Thursday we had a new visitor to the garden. Spotted feeding on sunflower hearts, that drop from the feeders, was a Collared dove! How pretty it looked and quite a bit smaller than the woodpigeons who were keeping a watchful eye on it. I have seen it visit a couple of times since. Well almost visit, as it looks over my garden perched on my neighbour’s tree.

Song thrushes also made a return visit over the weekend – I was delighted to see them! They are also such pretty and graceful birds. The minute I spotted two running around the borders I quickly threw some sultanas on the ground to encourage them to come back again another day. I haven’t spotted them since but I do believe they will come back again. I just hope I can get out with my camera in time when they are here!


Focused on one spot (the birdfeeder hooks) my video was left on record a couple of times today. What was I trying to catch? Well, the title of this post probably gives you a clue. I was trying to catch the male Sparrowhawk – another new visitor to my garden. Despite its reason for being in my garden (which I still get bothered by) it is actually a handsome looking bird with its orange tinted breast.

The female, well she isn’t so pretty especially when she is sitting on the ground under the feeders with a bird like the one above in her claws. The woodpigeon who thudded into my window to get out of her way this morning alerted me to what was going on. I opened the window and she flew off with her catch – I couldn’t have her eat it under the feeders! Oh… the male siskin is such a pretty bird too as you can see in the photo.

Over the weekend we also saw part of a chase by the male Sparrowhawk but I am not certain how the whole chase went. What I did see was what looked like a crow or jackdaw dive at the Sparrowhawk as it was trying to catch a bird from the feeders. The Sparrowhawk went away with nothing that time. I wish I had seen the whole chase as it looked quite dramatic!


A pretty photo is what is now needed to end this post. Back to the plants once again and what a catch this was! I passed through the display benches at a garden centre today. Bulbs were bursting out the soil of small pots and the sign above read ‘Plants reduced’. Well, you’ve got to take a look!

I picked the pretty ‘Pickwick’ crocus (try saying that fast!) shown above a few hours later in my garden. Well you knew ‘this’ was going to have a happy ending! The bulbs, yes granted, are almost past their best but three pots at 10 pence a pot, what a great bargain this was. I can still enjoy them until the weekend too! Mm… I went looking for more display tables with ‘pretty’ signs above them.

Sedum ‘Carl’ was being sold for just £2 – I really needed a basket now. Oh… who doesn’t enjoy this kind of plant shopping? The poor plants may get thrown in compost bins if they don’t get sold – I feel I am saving them! Walking out to pay for my plants I passed by another bench with plants. Oh… wait until you see this one!!

The siskin photo above was taken in July 2007. The crocus was taken in my garden today.

9 thoughts on “Not always pretty

  1. What a wonderful shopping spree. Maybe I need to get out and do this. My crocus isn’t showing yet and with this freezing weather they won’t appear. Maybe the next sunny day.

  2. Shirl, I hope you bought the Sedum ‘Carl’, it’s one of my favorite and I must have 20 different Sedum here.

    Only a few more weeks before we can go garden shopping too.

    Cheers

  3. One collared dove, will lead to about twenty in a couple of years.
    The most i have had was twenty two,all sitting on the fence. Numbers were affected last spring when a property near me cut down there huge conifers during the nesting season.
    lovely pic of the crocus

  4. Hi Shirl, thrushes are a great visitor to your garden such a lovely bird to look at, I am a big fan of collared doves however I have about 6 visiting and they go through quite a lot of food.
    Beautiful photo of the crocus it should be on a calender or something. Mike.

  5. sounds like you’ve had a good few visitors to your garden recently. Collared doves are lovely, we get them sometimes sitting on the roofs around here.

  6. Hi there, Lisa, Melanie, st, Anna, Mike and Juliet 🙂

    Lisa – it was great fun and I would highly recommend it! Although we are having frosty mornings at the moment, the sun is getting out later and we are having lovely blue skies and my crocus planted in my lawn are smiling their little faces off by lunchtime. Hope you get sunny days soon too 😀

    Melanie – Oh yes I certainly did! I’ve seen a few blogs that feature this one and I can see why it is your favourite. I bought it with the bees and butterflies in mind too. Enjoy your shopping when it comes 😀

    St – perhaps but we don’t see that many here at all – plenty Woodpigeons though. Yes, we have large mature trees a few streets away so no doubt they could hang about there. Thanks – it is a really lovely crocus 😀

    Anna – Search and rescue – the best kind of plant shopping! Yes, finding a planting space can be a problem can’t it 😀

    Mike – Yes, I love the thrushes in the garden. The collared dove has completely taken me by surprise – it is really so much smaller than the woodpigeon – another greedy feeder. Thank-you! I enjoy taking plant photos too – not the same issue with them moving too 😀

    Juliet – We do enjoy lots of visitors to the garden – they are wonderful to see. I’ve never seen doves on the rooftops – only woodpigeons, crows jackdaws and starlings 😀

  7. You’ve done a good job by saving all those crocuses Shirl. 😉

    That male siskin is very pretty, I know them quite well as my father used to breed them.

  8. Hi again, Yolanda 🙂

    That’s what I told myself when I then went searching for more to rescue in another garden centre 😀

    The siskin is very pretty. It must have been very interesting to see your father breeding the finches 😀

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