Our bird boxes have been well used this Spring and we have families of baby blue tits and robins fledged so far from them. The swallows are incredibly active and I hope they will produce a brood this year. In the hedgerow across the road there are young blackbirds and song thrushes and much activity from a pair of bullfinches so it looks like being a really productive year.... but it's also been the worst year ever for bird deaths by flying into windows.
It started a month ago when I noticed a male chaffinch lying in the hedge outside the conservatory window. Casualty no 1. Next day we found this beautiful woodpecker lying in this pose outside the door to the greenhouse. Casualty no 2. In the past week we've seen casualties no 3 and 4, both blackcaps. One tried to fly through my shed door and the other hit the window today whilst we were having lunch. We've got things on the window and the blinds should stop them but it hasn't worked out that way.
Sad person that I am, I have to take photos of them before a decent burial and then play around with them in Photoshop or use the images in prints. My friends think I am bonkers and that may be true. Believe me when I say I would much, much rather that they lived and thrived.
.... and now for the bit of hope because we noticed this bat earlier this afternoon clinging to the garage just above the bat box. Now we thought the bat box was unused and I'm not sure what he was doing outside but he looked decidedly static so I rang the Bat Conservation Trust for advice. Due to the height they couldn't send a volunteer to rescue him but asked that we monitor the situation. I've been like an old mother hen running out every five minutes ever since and when I last looked five minutes ago he had come down and was at the mouth of the bat box. I do hope this means he is going inside it, yet it will soon be time for bats to take to the skies so who knows what will happen. With bats protected it is worrying to see one in trouble but I am hopeful and will keep monitoring his movements. It brings it all home to us how fine the line is between life and death for our native wildlife and how little you can do in some circumstances.
7 comments:
How sad - we used to lose a lot of birds against our patio doors in our house in France sadly although some if left alone and protected from our two cats did recover sufficiently to fly off (whether they then died anyway I don't know) But we haven't had any here although we have a glass conservatory as you know. I found a tiny wee bat the other day on the grass - didn't know what it was doing out in the afternoon and wondered if perhaps bats can't take off from the ground and just in case I rescued it with my bee in the conservatory rescue kit (a jam jar and a piece of card) and put it on the table and by the time I had walked the half dozen steps back to the house it had gone - where? I am hoping it did indeed fly off and certainly it hadn't fallen on the ground nor where there any cats in the garden at the time. Nature is not always as my old yoga teacher used to think - gentle and wonderful is it and there's many a tragedy being acted out in our gardens.
We seem to be finding a lot of dead birds around the house lately too. Very sad.
Nature truly IS red in tooth and claw....... We have had to endure a greater spotted woodpecker drilling and making the hole in a nest box larger in order to take baby bluetits this year. It spent three days doing it and it has been horrid listening to the parents of the babies trying to chase it away. Harrowing! However, your post gives me hope that maybe the batbox David made a few years ago might just be inhabited..........
I am sorry to hear of your bird deaths Lesley - it can be so distressing. We had a cat-bird (yes, it sounds just like a cat) fly into the glass a few weeks ago but thankfully it was just stunned. We gave it a drop or two of Bach's Rescue Remedy and it brightened up and after a few more minutes flew away. A win! I love how you honour the birds in your images - that is a beautiful beautiful piece.
Beautiful photographs. I was also sad at the deaths of course. A few years ago I found a great spotted woodpecker dead in my raised pond near the house, it had crashed into a window and must have fallen, stunned,into the pond.
I hate it when birds die, a female blackbird was taken by cats a few days ago and left a male feeding the chicks in the bush behind the house. This will be the 5th time blackbirds have nested in this spot and each time around a few days before they spring the nest cats come and kill them. I get heart broken every time!
Lucy
out of the abundance of this amazing world all the little acts, your noticing these critters, all is important.
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