For The Birds

Of all the happy memories of my recent holiday on the North Sea coast the one that immediately springs to mind has nothing to do with the sun, sea and sand usually associated with the seaside. It´s the memory of the little family of sparrows which was always waiting for me when I came back from the beach. The first indication I had that there was a nest nearby was one morning after breakfast when a very thin and harassed looking female sparrow flew down onto the yard in front of the cottage and began to collect the bread crumbs I´d shaken out of an otherwise empty bag. The fact that she´d eaten none herself was a good indication that she had a family to feed which explained why she looked so pitifully skinny. Now I know you´re not supposed to feed wild birds in the summer and certainly not with bread but I couldn´t resist the impulse although from then on I did replace the bread with oat flakes which were small enough not to choke the babies. Soon the sparrow was joined by her mate, followed by a blackbird and a pair of thrushes. At first Dora watched this to-ing and fro-ing with vague interest and later with sublime indifference, that is until a very large and very clumsy baby thrush fell off the partition behind her and landed on her back...but that´s another story. This one´s about the sparrows. After about a week the foraging female sparrow brought 2 noisy babies down with her which delighted me as it was a sure sign of trust. 

This is part of one of the many videos I made of the little sparrow family. You´ll have to overlook the poor quality. I cut this from the end of a long video at a point where I´d held the camera at arm´s length for so long that I had a fit of the shakes and couldn´t even drink a cup of tea afterwards without spilling it down my front... 

As you´ll have noticed, at this point – 3 weeks on - the babies were already able to feed themselves but weren´t above choosing the easy option of harassing their mother with fluttering wings and frantic cheeping. Still, I was pleased to see that she looked a lot sleeker and after a while even flew off and left her babies to fend for themselves.

In memory of that holiday I thought it would be appropriate to offer you a freebie with a bird theme. No, not sparrows but seagulls which are more in keeping with the seaside.

If you´d like this little gift, you´ll find it HERE among the other seaside freebies.

I´m off now to make some more fat balls for several families of coal tits in my garden. Mmm, yummy! 

Have a lovely summer.