The Sap is Starting to Rise

I have just come across several lady bugs stirring from their winter slumber and I was also treated to the first blue bottle buzzing around the kitchen, a definite reminder warmer times are on the way.

Mrs blackbird

Longer days and warmth added together make for a positive burst of sexual activity anywhere but especially noticeable in and around the garden. I don’t know what goes on in the private social circles of the blackbird clan but the ones in my garden are not private about their antics. The blackbirds in my garden seem more reminiscent of the keystone cops but more intent on grievous bodily harm.

We have three males and two females that appear to be vying for favours with each other. One male just sits there, glowering down from the drainpipe, whilst the other four are locked in mortal combat on the lawn. The sap is certainly rising in these individuals as their wrestling bouts occur both day and night. Several times I have nearly fallen over my self as they scuttle beneath my feet in the early morning when I go to let the chickens out. What’s more amusing, it’s the ladies that are doing all the harassing and chasing, something that never happened when I was at school, he says trying to keep a straight face.

It is interesting to watch what happens as two younger males come into the garden, it is not the brooding patriarch on his drainpipe that rushes to defend his damsels in distress but the two females themselves that harass the younger males out of the garden, it is very amusing as they return to the patriarchs side.

Amusing it maybe these romantic follies of the humble blackbird but dark they are not unlike the behaviour of another garden resident, the robin.
These little fellows, so beloved of Christmas cards and chocolate logs are deadly assassins, fiercely territorial they often fight to the death with rivals for territory and mates yet they reside with so much affection in our psyche. Several times I have witnessed the ferocity of their territorial struggles.


Not always as they seem the territorial robin

 On the land I have access to for shooting there are several good copses where robins make their territories singing late into the night near the street lights. They often join you for titbits when were carrying out estate work too but so embroiled can they be in their conflict it can literally spill over into your lap. One fight between rivals recently got so embroiled they ended up in my coffee cup spilling it over making them look like drowned rats They looked very silly sitting there all dishevelled and steaming in the early morning frost but at least they were still alive. I picked one up from my allotment they other day which was being continuously attacked despite being quite dead by another. Such is life in the cut and thrust of avian love triangles.

It’s great to be able to leave work and have most of the journey in daylight as apposed to the short dark days of mid winter, heading up the A1 north to Morpeth I saw a familiar sickle shape in the sky harassing the local pigeons, a peregrine was at large. A week earlier, despondent sitting in my hide behind decoys that had not brought a signal pigeon in I was awoken from my near slumber, by the whoosh of wings. This time it was not a pigeon but the unmistakable slate grey of a beautiful male peregrine. He came in fast along the hedge bank to strafe my decoy pattern only to leave dismayed that they had not arose to flee in panic.


Appologies for the captive portrait and i think this is a Saker hybrid too, but still beautiful

As I watched him circle for a second look he then banked sharply and was joined by a second slightly larger bird, a female. Like members of the red arrows aerobatic team they shrieked in ecstasy as they tumbled through the air streams, sometimes folding their wings in a game of chicken, they would plummet to the ground at astronomical speeds, only to pull up at the very last moment shying in different directions to continue their aerobatics courtship further on.

Oh go on then here's another poetry in motion

Absolutely mesmerising, these are things I have been blessed with, visions we never forget. Some like the curve of a flash sports car, the glamour of a super model but in the world of nature the peregrine has got it all. Reaching speeds verging on the ridiculous they are truly the Aston Martin of the bird world. These two however almost bumbled away harangued by a couple of goldfinches.