They grow up so fast!

Outside our kitchen door we have access to what is called the cellier. In this cellar we keep a lot of our beekeeping equipment, and so in spring we need access to that place very frequently.

So, spring being what it is, the birds help themselves to the shelter that the beam is providing to make a nest, reducing our ability to freely visit the cellar. This year it started with the robin.

She visits the back of the house where we have placed a water trough for the bees. She has her daily bath there. So it was not surprising that we found she had laid 6 eggs there.

about 10 days later I saw that two eggs had hatched. What happened to the others?

After that, it did not seem to take long before they flew up to the nearby ash tree.

A couple of weeks later I noticed that the redstart was flying back and forth from the nearby washing line to the same nest.

Four eggs! I wondered what will happen to them. That was 18th of June.

I investigated on the 23rd of June and behold all but one chic had hatched.

Two days later they were all in the nest.

They were so tiny. But on 2nd of July, they seemed big enough to leave the nest.

On 5th of July, all I had was an empty nest. The birds had all gone to the nearby trees.

Robin and the sparrows visit the water trough and share it with our bees. With these very dry and also hot days that the French call the canicule, (the dog days) with temperatures around upper 30s and reaching 40 degree C (over 100 degrees F), we ensure that there is plenty of water for all the birds and the bees.

Amelia and I are concerned that although we water the vegetable patch and a few of the more precious shrubs, we will inevitably loose some plants and even trees. The heat is literally killing their leaves to a frazzle. Gardening is getting difficuly. I did try to cut down a branch of the ash tree, but without success. The pigeon had decided to nest just above the branch.

So, I do hope everyone keeps well and keeps cool.

• Kourosh

Garden Birds

The real hot days of summer (la canicule) are behind us.  Amelia and I found that this summer with the temperatures often between 35 and 40 degrees Centigrade, we were sitting less in the garden.  Oh, well, I told her, it is a good excuse to go to the beach!

Now in late September it is milder and we can attend to the neglected tasks in the garden.  And to admire the autumn flowers and of course to sit down for a cup of coffee.

Our garden is usually very peaceful, except for the chattering of the birds.  But the garden would surely not be the same without the birds.

When we first bought this house we had very few visiting birds.  Now I am amazed with the variety of the birds.  They all need water, and so we have placed several watering havens for the bees and the birds.

The hoopoe has become a regular summer visitor to the garden.

The green woodpecker made a bright splash of colour in the garden.  It is the first year that I have seen the woodpecker in the front garden.

The Redstarts have remained one of my favourite birds.  This year they occupied four nests that I had made for them and they raised at least four young ones in each nest!  We get both the black Redstarts as well as the common Redstarts.

Birds require plenty of water, not only to drink but to keep their feathers clean and their antics in the trough provide us with lots of amusement.  We  see Redstarts taking their bath almost every day at the moment.

I am almost sure that they actually enjoy frolicking in the water as much as my granddaughter used to do.

The sparrow make their nest under the eaves, and I am sure that they must have had three broods this year.  Like all baby animals, they too look cute.

But without a doubt, my favourite, at least for this year, is the warbler (I believe it is the melodious warbler).

Sometimes we have mistaken it for a sparrow as it is shy and moves away quickly, but its fine beak is a give-away.  The warbler has also started taking bath, but it is a quick dip in and out.

A couple of year ago, from a holiday in Malta, we brought with us a few seeds of what I call the giant fennel.  It has grown to well over two metres high and its flowers certainly attracted the bees.  Now in seeds, it seems to attract the warbler.

We shall certainly try to replant it next year, if nothing else to make sure that this beautiful bird keeps coming to our garden.

– Kourosh

Summer visitors

We are expecting most of our summer visitors, like this hoopoe, but when they arrive it adds a zest to the garden.  I suppose it gives a touch of exoticism to the garden as I have never seen them in the U.K. where they would be very uncommon visitors.  This year we have had a pair in the garden, perhaps they like the hot weather we have been having.

The young green Woodpecker has been visiting us lately and whereas we often here them we see them less often.  Perhaps they are less shy when they are young.

The birds do not have to be exotic to raise a smile, we like to see the blackbirds with their young.

We are pleased when the sparrows have raised their second brood.

The Redstarts keep us amused with their splashing in the water dishes.  They will take off at the end of the summer to the West African Sahel (that’s the bit that borders the Sahara, to save you looking up Wikipedia, as I had to.)

There are also the new finds like this Tussock moth that I cannot remember seeing before.  I think it has a bit of growing to do and it will probably support this growth by munching through some of our tree leaves.  The trees seem to have enough leaves to spare so I am not worried.  Let’s just hope it is not some new species that will now defoliate the entire tree cover in the Charente-Maritime.

When feeling endangered it curls up in a tight ball causing its rear tuft of hair to protrude.  It makes the tuft of hairs look very much like an extremely sharp beak and I am sure it will give most birds and predators pause for thought.

Kourosh found this bright blue beetle on the cut trunk of a tree in the garden.  Very eye catching and easy to find on the web.  It is a Rosalia alpina.  According to what I can find out, the adult can be between 15-38 mm.  So we must have got an extra large sample!

It was a very frisky specimen and I could not get it to stay in place inside my white box.  The larvae spend two or three years growing in dead wood so this is one of the species of insects that you could hope to support in a garden that left some dead wood lying around.  When trees are coppiced or pollarded this provides good sites for the females to lay their eggs, but as these practices are becoming more rare…

Of course, the Dasypoda bees mean summer time too.  I love to watch them bounce around from flower to flower.  Or rather, they are more measured in their flight, it is the flower heads that bounce around as they land and depart.  Soon she will fill up the silky hairs on her back legs with pollen and the fine hairs will be lost from sight amongst the heavy load of pollen.

One of our hives surprised us by swarming mid June.  It was co-operative enough to use the much favoured branch of our quince tree.

This let us get things sorted out quite quickly and the bees accepted their new home.

The young queen, who was left at home to start over and build up a new colony, is having a difficult time to get things going so late in the season.   Still, the departing swarm left her a super of honey so you cannot say that they were not generous.

We are not the only ones to receive visiteurs in summer, the bees get their share too.

 

 

 

Redstarts Breaking News

A few days ago, coming out of the back room from the kitchen I noticed that the red-start had thrown out a tiny broken egg shell.

I was quite excited hoping that the birds would let me have a quick look.  But, as both the male and female guard their nest, I am reluctant to disturb them too much.

Three days later, I did get my chance, as I saw the female returned with a caterpillar and then a few minutes later she left the nest,  So I rushed to have a look.  All five babies must have thought their mummy is back

Kourosh

Redstart

What would the garden be without the birds?

In our garden in France some days we hardly hear any sound of human existence.  Just the two of us digging, weeding and replanting.

This Spring we have  four pairs of redstarts (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) nesting in our garden, on the ash tree, under the car porch, in the Persimmon (Kaki) tree, and on the low beam outside the  kitchen.  This last one was originally an old robin nest.  That makes it a bit awkward as we have to be able to get in and out of the outhouse, but it seems that the bird and us have got used to each other, as long as we don’t look at her when we pass by.

Actually I think three pairs are the common redstarts and the other pair are black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros).

Here in France they are called le Rouge-queue and le Rouge-queue noir.  Looking at their tails, I think I agree with the French.

I had a peep inside their nest earlier, as the little bird was carefully preparing it.  Have you ever seen such soft bedding?

A few days later I looked at the nest on the beam outside the kitchen door,  The nest was all ready with five eggs.  It looks as if she has used the sheep’s wool from next door to line the nest.

I have left several water dishes for our birds, but I think the redstarts are the cleanest birds.

Their bath times remind me of my grand daughter who loved what she used to call her ‘splishy splashy’.  Is this one washing her ears?

The black redstart also loves bath times,

I wonder if they would like deeper baths?

This all makes a change from the bees and swarm collecting.

Kourosh

Summer arrives

We had almost no Winter this year; and the Spring has been most unusual.  Across the mainland Europe, warm days were interrupted with days of heavy rain and wind.

A week ago Amelia and I were driving near the city of Cognac and it was truly sad to see large tracks of vineyards completely flattened by hail-storm of late May.  They will have very little grape to harvest this year as well as next year, as next year’s crop should appear on this year’s growth.

In this little corner of the Charente-Maritime of France we have been gratefully sheltered from the worst of the inclement weather.

Since 20th June the temperature has suddenly shot up to over 30 degrees C (about 90 degrees F).  The garden has changed, as some of the Spring flowers have faded and others such as monarda and hydrangeas have  taken over.

The bees have been extra busy, but for a while I had some difficulty retrieving my bee suit and the bee equipment.  They are all stored in the cellar just outside the utility room.  There is a little beam there less than two metres high and a little redstart had decided to nest there using an old robin’s nest.

Another sneaky look whilst she was away and what do I discover?  The little lady has been really busy.

Five tiny eggs packed in gently in the old nest which she had repaired.

Two or three days after that I had another quick look to see what is happening.

They were all there.  All five of them.

It became a little easier after that to enter and leave the cellar to retrieve my bee suit.  But at each occasion, the chicks thought that their mummy has returned and will feed them soon.

Meanwhile in the olive tree in the front garden a little sparrow was waiting for his mother.

Oh, well.  If mummy is slow in returning, perhaps the little fluff ball can have a go at the seeds himself.

But what is this little bird in the water tough?  He is having what my little grand-daughter calls her ‘splishy-splashy’.

Even the blue tits is wondering who he is.

Despite the heat, I must go and cut the grass in the back garden.  But I don’t really have the heart cutting the wild flowers.

Kourosh