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.
