I'm free as a bird this week! I've just had the pins taken out of my broken toes yesterday, so I'm much more mobile now. I've been down at our new house in Billington doing a bit of gardening (cos I'm not much good at interior DIY) and birding out of the upstairs window.
Seems like every corvid in Lancashire is nest building near the viaduct. I watched jays, magpie, carrion crow, rook and jackdaw collecting material all in the space of half an hour.
However, the jackdaws used that higher corvid intelligence to collect a better nest material....cow hair! A couple of the magpies tried to copy them but there were just a bit more nervous of the cows. The cows didnt seem to mind most of the time. They probably think of it like a good scatch. The jackdaws probably get the odd tick too, as well as any ground insects that grazing cattle might flush out.
No oxpecking for the jays though.
The enjoyment of watching the jackdaws ended, however, when I found a bundle of twigs etc in our fireplace!!!!
Inside our chimney (I've now seen them entering) is not a good choice even if we are unlikely to light a fire until the autmn.
Another bad choice of nest this week is that the robins have nested under the old toilet cistern in the barn! Whats wrong with the nestbox that I made for them?
Other news this week -
My first swifts of the year - today over Billington viaduct.
A siskin strangely hanging out with the house sparrows on my hedgerow.
2 woodmice at Ashleigh, no rats since the latest shooting.
Very large bats over the lower lodge at Barrow. Probably noctule bats.
Only 1 pipistrelle feeding at Ashleigh, 1 of my bat boxes has blue tits nesting in it!.
The blackbird pair are on to a second clutch now. Not sure how many they fledged from the first, but theres 3 eggs in the nest now.
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