Birds in the Garden - tentatively related to Saint Bartolomeu (Photo taken on 16th July - his feast day)

Birds in the Garden

As I was thinking of a tentatively related story, I looked at what I was doing on 16^th July last year (2019) and found photos of starlings in the garden.  We moved back to the UK in October 2018 into an Airbnb in a village called Kentisbeare, where we used to regularly have a Robin land on the door handle and look in through the French doors.  Both Pippi and Ben had separately said that it reminded them of Nanny, and I had the same thought.  We also used to get a pair of long tailed tits feeding regularly

Anyway, we moved to a rented house in Cullompton, Devon in April 2019.  I love watching the birds so put a feeder up as soon as we moved.  This soon attracted plenty of birds … mainly starlings and sparrows.  The starlings were coming in in groups of 30 at a time, the young constantly bickering with each other and making a right din – it was great to watch.  We also had blue tits with their young, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, Hooded Crow, Seagull (called Sid) who now has a wife he brings with him, blackbirds – we had a broken blackbird egg in the garden this year, great tit’s, the occasional Robin, Goldfinch – although the house behind with a tall tree in the garden gets a lot more, greenfinches, the greedy magpies, collared doves, wood pigeon and carrion crows with their mournful sound.

Of course, in Australia, we used to get completely different birds, including kookaburra’s, galahs, ringnecks, white- and red-tailed black cockatoo’s and rainbow lorikeets.

We will move again in due course and I look forward to the next lot of birds in a different location.  I have discovered their favourite food is mealworm, but it is so expensive, and they get through it so quickly that they do not get it too often.