A fairly quiet couple of weeks. I did a couple of bike rides where not much was seen. There was a yellowhammer on a telegraph wire on the way back from Gretna a week ago on Friday and I only identified that by taking a photograph of it and blowing it up.
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| Crab Apple? |
Last Wednesday there were a good few birds stirring in the woods around Cowhill but not hanging around. There were a couple of buzzards about and it's some time since I've seen them.
On the way back home I noticed this tree near Portrack House. I assume it's a crab apple but the fruits look very small compared to the ones I remember when I was a kid.
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| Young Cormorant |
More puzzling was a bird perching on the River Nith, which I could quickly see was not a heron. I reckoned it was a juvenile
but couldn't work out which species. The answer is actually quite simple - it's a young cormorant. The white chest is misleading but the posture and other parts are quite typical.
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| Coal Tit |
Meanwhile at home, a sunflower I allowed to grow has become very bedraggled but has attracted the regular attention of a coal tit. It has become extremely adapt at stealing the seeds one by one, but always moves off again to eat them. In fact there are two coal tits around but I fancy
it's always the same one that goes for the sunflower.
A coal tit is not a rare visitor to the garden but recently they have become frequent. It has opened my eyes a bit to see how agile their flight is and far quicker than most other garden birds as they dart around the bushes. They also seem to be capable of a hovering action that almost reminds of a humming bird.
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