Sunday, March 01, 2009

NATURE'S BOUNTY

On our side of Brigg we are fortunate to live very close to the countryside, despite being in the midst of a housing estate. This is reflected in the wide range of birdlife visiting urban gardens in this part of town - even very small ones, like ours.
While updating Brigg Blog at home, a bush and tree are in clear view through the window and are visited by not only mundane sparrows, starlings and blackbirds but more exotic bull finches, green finches, blue tits, great tits, robins and wrens, to name just a few.
On one occasion last year a sparrow hawk arrived and perched on the back garden fence, if only for a minute.
Unfortunately our digital camera equipment does not run to a long lens - and the birds will have flown before we get close enough to grab a pic to share with you on this posting.
It would be interesting to learn what range of birdlife visits gardens across Brigg. So, if you can, post your location and the types you enjoy watching.

1 comment:

Ken Harrison said...

Like you, Nige, the garden's full of feathered friends. There must be a nest of thrushes about as almost daily one is pranching about the lawn. A family of wrens has returned - funny little bird, a bit like a feathered ping-pong ball on two thin bits of wire.
For a few years in the recent past, the local area has been plagued by a couple of magpies - savage birds, which scare other bird species to take shelter.
I once had a green woodpecker do a fleeting visit..stayed for about a minute and then flew off. That was about 8 years ago. Flying about in people's gardens seemed incongruent to its normal habitat..so I am unable to explain why it found one of my trees so attractive.
The bird visitors seem unaffected by my roaming cats, although Spikey and William catch an odd pigeon to supplement their Tesco's 'Chunky Meat Bits in Gravy'.
Talking about cat food, why do they have flavours such as 'beef' - I've never seen a cat stalking a cow yet!