birdpix

Anyone that knows the horrible dump that is Sutton In Ashfield  town Centre,will know where Asda is ,this evening in their car park ,a blackbird wassinging beautifully from a tree in this spot.Earliest I have heard them sing before is in december .

My ten year old niece, Megan  is showing encouraging signs of becoming a bird watcher.We were on a bike ride and she wanted to go to the river Meden from the village to see the ducks,after we had done that she wanted to ride (my wifes) bike to Pleasley Pit to see some more birds (who was I to argue) We stopped at the park on the way there where she was interested enough to ask me about the sparrows in the hedges.At the pit a skein of geese landed close by on a small pond ,she loved this and when I told her there is a bird hide nearby ,she was keen to go.In the hide ,she asked me if she should write down on a list of the birds that she had seen ,yes what a good idea I agreed!The leader of the Pleasley Pit Nature Study Group looked on ,She is going to be  a member of the new Wildlife Exploreres group thats starting locally soon I offered.I wish that my parents had been interested in wildlife ,they taught me nothing about natural history ,shocking parenting,if in the unlikely event that my mother reads this ,I hope that she gets the message ,that she severely effected the size of my bird list...

At work ,I watched a sparrowhawk lunge at and miss a house sparrow,the day before in the garden another sprawk had given a blackbird the fright of its life.Talking of blackbirds cant help but wondering about the early singer,is it sedentry and resisted the temptation to go to Ireland ? or has it come from a Scandanavian or Eastern European country ?Either way its keen to stake a claim to that tree as a territory in a grotty part of Sutton.Redwings are definately getting more numerous now ,seen over our garden a couple of times recently .At work again ,there were some Mistle Thrushes about and I heard a Kestrel ,making a peculiar squeeking noise in flight and whilst hunting ,hovering and squeeking! Later on again unusually ,two kestrels hunted mid air just a few feet apart,opposite each other mid hover.Is one of these birds a fledgling from this year? asked  apal who offered this theory ,to be honest ,I was puzzled by it .Have in the past seen occasionally two kestrels hunting nearby ,but not like these two...On the way to work today ,a cock pheasant flew out in front of me ,beautiful looking bird ,lousy flier though and desperately unfair that some one is likely to blow him away .We have on the one hand ,organisations like the RSPB for example doing vital conservation work meanwhile about 35 million innocent so called game birds pay with their lives to amuse posh people.Its high time that this barbaric slaughter is made illegal -permanently.

Talking of the RSPB ,theHarapan forest ,according to the most recent estimate has only 25 tigers .Its desperately important that these magical creatures are protected.There have been horrendous forest fires in Sumatra recently.More and more orangutang habitat is being lost for palm oil plantations.Support the RSPB in this venture-you  know it makes sense.

Ginger cat  that  I know ,murdered a wren yesterday ,the wife prised his jaws open to spit out the wriggling wren ,who sadly died a traumatic death .Ever looked at a  wren in minute detail? They are a work of art, not bad for Britains most common bird ,and what a song for its size!Surely ,in the winter at least ,blackbirds become our most numerous bird? If not ,how about woodpigeons ,I think that someone should do a quick count and get back to me .