Uncategorized: Spring Revival
I moved house just before Christmas, and one of my first tasks was to hang up bird-feeders in the back garden. I bought a big bucket of bird feed, filled the feeders and waited for the crowds of birds that would surely arrive. The garden backs onto some overgrown gardens on Bohermore road and there is plenty of cover for small birds. At the same time, I planted plenty of bulbs in pots so that I would have plenty of crocuses, daffodils and other Spring flowers to welcome in the new year.
Alas, the cold snap did for both enterprises. For the first couple of weeks, there were plenty of sparrows, finches and tits clustered around the feeders. But once the temperature dropped well below zero, the numbers died away (as did the birds). I had even left out thawed drinking water but there were days on end when no birds landed in the garden. Likewise, the soil in the pots froze, and not a single bud burst through the soil. Before I left for a trip abroad last week, I dragged all of the pots out of the shade down to the back wall of the garden. At this time of the year, the sunshine reaches the back wall for most of the day, and sure enough, when I returned this weekend, buds were finally emerging in most of the pots.
There has been a revival too in the bird numbers. Sparrows appear better than other species at surviving the extreme cold (pr maybe there were just more of them to begin with) but finches are also showing up [not a single Blue Tit or Great Tit appears to have survived in the neighbourhood - they were regular visitors before the freeze]. On Saturday morning, the goldfinch pictured above visited the garden – the first since December – and feasted for about 30 minutes. The feeder he chose was one that most of the other birds shun – because it is close to the kitchen window (and so located for photography reasons).
The picture shows the goldfinch chewing on a sunflower seed, and was taken with a Canon 7D attached to a Canon 100-400mm lens – picture was taken through the kitchen window. The colours have not been enhanced – the plumage really is that beautiful.
