Apple Blossom and a little French Beauty!

My favourite time of year has to be Spring and early summer and in particular apple blossom time. Having grown up in a rural part of the country where apple orchards and 'blossom' trails were a seasonal feature, it's a  joy to have an old variety apple tree in our front garden.

Years of neglect meant we inherited a tree that was barely recognisable, in need of a prune and absolutely smothered in ivy. The 'family firm' soon set to work not long after our move and within a few days we'd uncovered a pretty tree and lovingly pruned her into shape - with a little expert help from my mum!

The following spring at 'Mole End' was cold and wet and the blossom a bit disappointing to say the least. Cold winds and rain soon blew the flowers away and the sound of buzzing bees conspicuous by their absence! What a shame....we would have to wait a whole year to see if our tree would fully recover.

Well....what a difference a year makes! Sunshine and warmth, a lot less rain and our little tree has come up trumps! Smothered in gorgeous fragrant blossom and buzzy bees busily going about their duty. Our local bird population has grown too - regular visits from nuthatches, blue tits, woodpeckers, robins, goldfinches, chaffinches, yellowhammers and of course our resident population of noisily chatty sparrows.

...and here is a photo of our tree in full bloom, enhanced by a visit from our friend Colin and his Citroen 2CV...don't they make a pretty pair??

Cheeky Chaffinch - Twitterpated or What??

Since I started feeding the birds in our front and back garden, we have a growing number of daily visitors to the bird table and feeders in addition to our resident population of noisy sparrows who spend their day chattering and gossiping in the hedgerows.

We're also lucky enough to have regular visits from the lovely woodpecker (greater spotted) - a splash of black & white spots and bright red under belly. I finally got to snap him on film too..it's not the best photo but at least it shows he was there!

One of our other regular visitors is the Chaffinch...normaly a shy bird who flits in and out of the table and feeders without making a big fuss. However, of late he's taken to tapping at Mr F's studio window and attacking the car!

It took a while to work out what was going on here but we concluded that during sunny days when our house windows were at their most reflective, the Chaffinch was convinced that what he saw was a rival bird invading his territory. He spent days on end attacking our house windows and the car windscreen. It drove Mr F mad who was busy trying to get on with some serious artwork...in the end Mr F resorted to hanging print outs of birds of prey on his studio door. It seemed to do the trick, except that all that happened was the Chaffinch relocated to another part of the garden - in front of my window and the whole rigmarole started again!!!!

Thankfully the demented bird has stopped it's bizarre behaviour and settled back into normal feeding. Not sure if that's because it decided the reflection was not a threat after all ....or could it be because we've had duller weather of late so the 'phantom' rival Chaffinch has temporarily gone away!!!!

Birdie Nom Nom

I've always liked to feed garden birds and in our previous house, apart from blue tits, finches and blackbirds, we had a noisy flock of sparrows who lived in the bushes. Each day they would eat their way through a whole feeder of nuts! They had mastered the art so well that they even fed their fledglings from it:

Here in our new home we have quite a different selection of bird visitors. So far we've had nuthatches, goldfinches, long tailed tits, blue tits, sparrows, woodpeckers, robins, blackbirds and today a pair of doves....word must be getting around!

In the mornings it's a feeding frenzy as they flit in and out of the apple tree, the nuthatches are greedy little things and feed upside down, stabbing their beaks at any other birds who dare to disturb their personal space. The sparrows and blue tits are more tolerant of each other and happily feed in groups but when the woodpecker strikes..the other birds are disturbed and fly off into the bushes.

Being messy feeders, quite often the birds will flick bread from the bird table onto the ground... Truffle has cottoned on to this so her enthusiasm for the front garden has become part of the daily routine as she races out there to nom tasty morsels carelessly discarded by the greedy birds!!!

We've tried to get photos of the birds but it's not easy so the best I can do is a little sketch of three types of visitors (not quite up to Mr F standard but it's the best I can do and he's buggered off to Twickenham today...something to do with Rugby, Help for Heros and Wessex Choir).

All very distracting as I gaze out of my office window but such a joy to see more visitors every day, even if it is costing us a fortune in bird feed!