This Year's Birdbox Nest

This year a pair of House Sparrows chose to raise their noisy chicks in one of our birdboxes, visible from our kitchen window. The most entertaining and enchanting family to observe and the silence, now they have fledged, is palpable. We think there were at least two chicks but we missed them fledging so there could well have been more. 

The Sparrow Box

Sparrow parents spin
Frantic food dash, fly, fly, bug
Woodlouse for lunch, yuk!

Godzilla and Bro
That’s what I nicknamed the pair
Roaring for food now

Empty Nester

A quiet kitchen
You have fledged, nest-box now cold
Little sparrows flown

Goldfinches in the Willows

 

Verge-side willows slump
While two goldfinch strip catkins
Of their down; spring snow!

 

Clouds of catkin down
Drift in the warm Spring sunshine
Goldfinch weather now

Spring fields and garden birds

A twister springs up
Swirling wings in a grey sky
Seagulls storm the field

The farmer’s field lake
Grown fat with winter flooding
Now ducks feed for free

Through the window, here!
Robin acknowledges me
For windowsill seeds

Little wren hunts flies
While the blackthorn’s in full bloom
We share the blossom

Falcon, wren and sparrows

Peregrine Falcon

Hawk-eyed, on the fence

Warily watching for food

Bird table sentry

Silent dawn chorus

Falcon glides emptyhanded

No song for supper

Wren

The wren on the fence

A little feather whistle

Blown away by wind

Sparrows

Good day! Good day! Hey!

Dapper in flat cap and tweed

Sparrows chat away

  

Under the rooftiles

A secret stash of treasure

Jack sparrow’s new nest

Spring Garden Birds

In the green embrace

Of a Spring garden, birds dance

Singing in delight

Here, now, the first calls

From the eaves, fast wings flash past

New life needs feeding

Starling

Lawn strutting starling

Freshly slick'd in gold and green
Garden party guest

Magpie in the woods

High tide, sea of blue

Magpie skims his feathers through
Dappled bluebell lakes

Garden birds

After the storm, sun

And food for the garden birds

It's Spring for a day!

(Click on the photos for a larger view)

Jay

Dunnock

Blue tit

Greenfinch

Greenfinch & Great tit

Greenfinches

Robin

Skylark

Countertenor soars

Raising the blue roof higher

With each note he sings

Blue Tit & Woodpecker

Blue tit on the Window Frame

A spider-web catch

Tasty snack for quick blue tit

Fast food takeaway

The Woodpecker

Through the misty dawn

Hollow cough call, tap, tap, tap

As you knock on wood

Spring

In a bluebell gown

Sylvia brushes her hair

Braiding in birdsong

Birdsong and Blackbirds

Birdsong 

In the spring garden

The warm air drenched with birdsong

Notes falling like rain

Blackbirds

On the high branch hear

Their clear arias sung loud

And sweet in the air

The blackcap arrives

Blackcap, cock-a-hoop

Crowned King of the bird feeders

Surveys his Spring court  

The chaffinch

Quick march! Left, left, right!

Loud and clear the chaffinch calls

With his Sergeant stripes

Wren in the Flowerbed

Deep in leaf litter
Diligent little wren seeks
The green stir of spring

Up in the copper beech tree

Blue sky serenade

High in the clear air branches

Blue tit calls for Spring