I’m always reading that the common sparrow is getting to be very rare but in my garden we are swamped by them, and it was just the same in my old garden. Not that I’m complaining though, they are dull compared with most birds but they do have cheery personalities and I’ve noticed that the sparrows here are a lot less argumentative than the Kirkcaldy sparrows who often got into noisy chirping fights with rival squads of sparrows.
Look a bit closer and you’ll see that there are well camouflaged sparrows in there, it’s an old wash-hand basin covered by a black bin bag. The birds use it a lot and I probably won’t bother to make a pond for this garden as I noticed a few weeks ago that there was a lot of midge larvae in the basin. I don’t really want a big pond full of them.
I remeber being told as a child that robins only got their red breast feathers in the winter but in Fife there are red breasted robins around all year. This cheeky chappy stood on my garden bench surveying the place for ages last Saturday.
In fact the bench is used by the birds far more than it is used by me. I occasionally flop onto it to have a rest from weeding and to straighten my back out. But as you can see it’s a favourite spot for the sparrows too.
Sparows and robins – not very exciting I hear you say but I swear to you that I saw an eagle circling around and calling in a high pitched tone today on my travels, but did I have a camera or binoculars? Did I whack. I’m going to have a look for it tomorrow though as you never know your luck!
Charming photos of your garden and the wee birds. I’ve always liked being able to notice, observe and identify birds. No “robin redbreasts” here: ours are forest-dwellers; I’ve never seen any – one variety, the Black Robin, is extremely rare.
My grandmother used to refer to sparrows as “spadgers” – do you know that term?
Valerie,
No I haven’t heard of spadgers but the Scots word for sparrows is speug pronounced sp-yug. I just looked up spadgers and it says that Margery Allingham used it in three of her books. I love the garden birds, we do have quite a lot of different ones coming in now that there are trees for them to perch on and ground cover, but I don’t want to encourage grey squirrels so I don’t feed the birds.
Since I live in the southern US, we see more robins in the winter or very early spring, but we have several other species that I see often – cardinals, mourning doves, wrens, woodpeckers, blue jays, sand hill cranes, etc. We live about 40 miles for one of the largest bird sanctuaries in the US, so I guess living in Florida does have some perks even though I don’t often appreciate them?.
Enjoy your visit with Peggy!
Paula
Paula,
Your birds seem so exotic to me. We get blue tits, collared doves, thrush, blackbirds, magpies, crows and chaffinches but the sparrows are the most common. We used to live near a bird sanctuary too and had more unusual birds then. I believe that Peggy wasn’t too keen on Florida either!
Thanks, she’ll be here very soon now and we’ll probably all need another holiday to get over this visit! Although I think we won’t be quite as busy as last year.
Katrina,
Enjoyed this post! I much prefer the appearance of the UK robins to ours. But I love the entire thrush family–the wood thrush, the eeyrie, and, especially the hermit thrush, with his haunting, flute-like melodies. And I don’t find sparrows boring at all. They are a bit more intelligent than many birds and are fascinating to watch. Good songsters, too.
And oh, your garden is so beautiful–thank you so much for the photos. I never tire of seeing them.
I heard tell you got some warmer weather this week or last? True or was that a rumor?
And what did you think of Andy winning the gold for his second time? We saw almost the absolute entire match last evening, but after 4 hours and 10 minutes, our recording of it ended, and Andy and Juan Martin were at the very end of the fourth set. Oh, dear. We went to bed scratching our heads, but heard all about those last few plays this am. I bet Scotland was celebrating!
Judith,
They kept telling us that summer was coming last week but not for us. However today was beautiful and warm, typical as the teachers went back to work today. The kids go back tomorrow – thank goodness Jack is retired from all that! Due to time differences I haven’t seen the tennis final, but I’ve been told it was a great match so I think I’ll watch it on catch up if possible. I’m just so relieved that he has been winning grand slams because it obviously means so much to him. Poor you – not being able to watch it all, very frustrating!
Often the most common birds can surprise and delight us – certainly me at least! Lovely photos. I do hope you’ve spotted that eagle!
Sandra,
We haven’t been over that way again, but we will soon, armed with camera!
We get a lot of canaries and budgies that like to spa around in the holding pond of our backyard waterfall. They don’t hold still for much photography though. They do look adorable splashing around, though.
In the early morning, I can hear the mourning doves out back. Their call sounds like “Shia La Boeuf…Shia La Boeuf.” Must say that’s kind of ruined it for me.
Pearl,
Apparently there are loads of cockatoos in the south of England now, some escaped years ago and are thriving despite the cold winters. They’re colourful but very noisy. We mainly get collared doves and they just have that annoying coocoo – coo call.
Your garden is looking lovely so it is no surprise the birds enjoy themselves there!
Stefanie,
Thanks, but like all gardeners I’m never completely satisfied with the results – it’s a work in progress!