Another welcome sign of the approach of spring: a Long-Tailed Tit collects spider webs to build a nest.
It was just along the path from the regular Robin at the Henry Moore sculpture, which came out to collect four pine nuts.
Other customers included the new Blue Tit near the Speke obelisk ...
... and a Chaffinch behind the Albert Memorial.
A Carrion Crow flew into the leaf yard carrying an aluminium foil food dish. The dish was empty and I think the crow just liked the shiny gold finish.
A Redwing preened in a tree on the Parade Ground.
A Black-Headed Gull in the Diana fountain enclosure did the worm dance and brought up a worm. It had been dancing for at least three minutes before the start of this clip.
This is of our regular Black-Headed Gulls, 2PSN, which was ringed in the unromantic surroundings of the Pitsea landfill site near Basildon and has been coming here every winter for many years.
A Grey Heron stalked very slowly and carefully through a reed bed near the Italian Garden, hoping to surprise a fish in a gap between the reeds.
The Little Grebe in the Italian Garden ...
... was diving with its usual companions.
If you look down through the willow beside the bridge you can see Mallards resting on their favourite branch. The willows are going green already, the first trees to put out new leaves.
A young fox looked out of a patch of long grass on the edge of the Long Water near the Italian Garden.
A squirrel in a jasmine bush did its best to look sweet and appealing. It works on many people, but I have a heart of stone where squirrels are concerned.
A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee browsed on mahonia flowers in the Rose Garden. I'm trying to get pictures or video of these hardy creatures in every month of the year.
Tina Coulcher sent some pictures taken by her son Dan at Bull Island near Dublin, which seems to be a fine place for wetland birds. Here are a Curlew ...
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... and a Redshank.
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Finally, a link to Twitter, a short video by Chaudhary Parvez. It was shot just before the earthquake in Turkey, and he reckons that it shows birds sensing the first tremors before the quake struck. There is no doubt that animals can detect oncoming earthquakes. But it has also been suggested that it's just the normal noisy behaviour of Jackdaws coming in to roost. What do you think?
i don't think that's normal Jackdaw behaviour. It reminds me of a sudden, unexpected, and catastrophic cold front a decade ago here. I was driving back from my place of work when I noticed that it was growing darker and darker by the minute. I saw several hundred Jackdaws fleeing (I can't call it by any other term) the city flying away at speed towards the countryside. Not fifteeen minutes later there came the biggest, most violent thunder- and hailstone downpour in my memory. It raged on for half an hour and as a result the lower part of the town was flooded, many vehicles, buildings and tree were damaged, some persons got seriously hurt, animals on the streets got pelted to death, and firefighters had to rescue many people from cars and the like. I had never seen anything like that in my life. I recalled the Jackdaws, desperately fleeing the city minutes before the thunderstorm began. I have no doubt they had sensed it and were terrified. Their behaviour was very like the one in the clip.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
Thank you. That's most enlightening.
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