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Fieldfares in the Crab Apple
When the snow returned yesterday morning almost an inch fell, although it wasn’t as cold as it was after last year’s snowfalls. When I’ve cleared the driveway it’s been powdery but yesterday afternoon...
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Birds at a Glance
These aren’t drawings of the birds’ ‘true’, accurate appearance – it would be easier to study a bird book for an authoritative version of that – but they aren’t drawings of the birds as I saw them...
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Nest Robber
A COMMOTION before breakfast; six Blackbirds and a Mistle Thrush are gathered in what looks to me like indignant rage around a Magpie on the back lawn which is down at the edge of the pond, attacking a...
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Pigeons in the Wood
WOOD PIGEONS have been gathering in the treetops – about a hundred of them fly up over the wood on this cold and misty morning. Their regular foraging in the fields has been first snow-covered then...
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Blackbirds
THE CLOCKS went forward at the weekend so we’re now into British summertime, despite the low temperature and the strips of snow lingering on the hills. It’s 8pm and as the light fades there’s a lot of...
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Windfalls
A dull and dripping morning. A wren investigates the top of the beech hedge. The heron is a regular morning visitor, perching halfway up one of the trees on a quiet bend of the beck. At this time of...
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Blackbird Improvisations
The blackbird in our front garden has made an early start practising his dawn chorus; ‘How d’ya feel?’, a phrase that rises at the end leaving you waiting for the response, which is ‘It’s six-thirty.’...
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Song Post
The blackbird that I heard practicing its phrases in the dawn chorus mid-March has added grace notes and decorations to its basic song. At lunchtime today he was giving a burst of song from a perch on...
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Blackbird catching Newts
Over the past couple of days we’ve seen a female blackbird resting in the middle of the blanket of duckweed that covers most of our pond. She’s not bathing or struggling to get out. This evening I...
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Pheasants
There were eight blackbirds in the garden this morning. The lawn is the main gathering ground but now that the crab apples are starting to turn soft there will occasionally be one in the tree. Wood...
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Birdbath
3.45 p.m.: Three female pheasants walk up the wood-chip path to peck at spilt sunflower hearts beneath the bird feeders. A robin’s bathing routine is interrupted by a blackbird, a more enthusiastic...
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Snowdrops
43ºF, 8ºC, 10.15 a.m.: In the back garden a robin is singing; a pair of magpies call raucously; a blackbird splutters in alarm and house sparrows chirp continuously from the hedges. A fragment of...
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First Frogs
Emley Moor transmitter seen from across the Calder valley in Horbury, five miles to the northwest, 11 a.m. 2.30 p.m., overcast, merest hint of drizzle, 51ºF, 11ºC: Frog activity has started again in...
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Blackbird in the Bins
Not quite a blackthorn winter: a passing hail shower whitens the ground but as hail turns to sleet and rain it soon melts away. 4.15 p.m., 43°F, 6°C: The blackbird loves what I’m doing with the compost...
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Blackbird v. Song Thrush
1.30 p.m.: One of the song thrushes is bashing a snail against the concrete edging alongside the pavement. That corner of our garden should be a good hunting ground because last week, on a warm wet...
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