Mrs Blackbird

The nest is in the bottom centre of this picture, at the far left of the box

"And then there were four!"

"They are just like Cadbury's Mini Eggs!"

"Keeping a beady eye on me"

Making friends

It is now two weeks since I began sharing my balcony with a blackbird family. Mrs Blackbird, while sitting on her four beautiful eggs or perching on the side of the window-box having a stretch, has become quite used to me popping out now and then to check on the weather or to water the plants, and also to keep a check on how she is.

Last Sunday she even let me sit in my chair beside her and read the newspaper.

Today I could get really close again to take a new photograph of her on the nest. I had actually rushed in to get the camera when I discovered that she had left the nest for her early morning stretch but by the time I got back the nest was filled with her fluffed up body again.

Is Dad standing by?

I have not seen the black Mr Blackbird since before my trip to England. It was the male bird that I had spotted making a mess of my plant pots when gathering mud for the nest. I hope that he is still around and will reappear to help out with the feeding frenzy that will soon begin.

If Dad has come to an unfortunate end then I will have to give a helping hand by purchasing Mrs Blackbird some maggots from the fishing-tackle shop and leaving them on the balcony for her.

That is something else that I learnt from my Mum!

With a family of keen fisherman there was often a can of maggots in the fridge.  My Mum, with Dad’s full approval, often raided this tin, placing some of the contents on a tray in the middle of the lawn. She did this particularly to help out her robin friends, who fed from her hand, when there was a huge family of baby-birds to feed. She also fed the robins grubs that she found while raking the moss from the lawn to use to line her hanging flower-baskets. These grubs were specialities that the robins always took fresh from her fingers!

Dad has the photographs, I will ask him for them when I next see him!

Norwich peregrines

The young birds fledged two weeks ago but still the Hawk and Owl Trust Forum is inaction. There are some wonderful photographs to be found there by the contributors on the forum, one such set can be found here—

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrissyboy/7409879986/in/photostream

You can find others by scrolling though the Forum topic-list –

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