Flying Flut, an animation and photo by Val Erde
Lorri, over at The Eff Stop, has a great post Clash of the Siskins, with her photos of Siskins at the feeder. She includes her captions, which I love. And it’s a great push for me to do a post about our own birdies, here in the wilds of Wales, and show you my animation above. It’s called ‘Flying Flut’ because ‘Flut’ is what we call Sparrows. (‘We’ as in me and my hubby.)
So anyway, it is now Spring. I know this, not because the weather has changed (it has a bit, but this is the UK and often a change of seasons is not that obvious) but because the birds’ behaviour is different. Amongst others, the Robins sit side by side and the Blackbirds aren’t quite as keen on chasing off the opposite sex as they have been. Our resident male – Beaky – has two girls on the go, one of which is much neater than the other – her feathers are in good condition, she bathes and afterwards it shows – so of course, Beaky prefers the skinny unkempt hen.
The two girls have been fighting for months. They have chased each other around the flowerbeds, around (and in, under and above) the trees, up and down the stream, through the tiny waterfall, in and out of the summer-house, and over the top of our house. Possibly in an attempt to clear his head, Beaky walks on water (well, okay, on the waterlily leaves, then).
Tadpoles have appeared. Not magically, no. The Frog Chorus began a few weeks ago and reached a crescendo one night, but the froggy love fest number didn’t beat the record from a couple of years back, which was (if I remember correctly) 175, and that was just the ones hubby managed to count. It gets noisy here and Welsh Male Voice Choirs don’t account for all of it. Not in our pond, anyway.
I’m forever blowing bubbles…. photo by Val Erde
With tadpoles tadding about in the pond (would they call it ‘tadding’, themselves, I wonder? “Oh, dear siblings, let us go for a tad, let us tad-about madly. For one day we will wail that we have no tail.” Talking of strange verse, take a gander at Darla’s nuttiness here, in her lastest post I wish I was in Tijuana, Eating barbequed Iguana in the Sauna.) yes, with taddies tadding about, it gives the birds more food. Illicit food. They.are.not.supposed.to.eat.tadpoles. Well, not our tadpoles, anyway. Because we like ‘em to end up as frogs.
Soon after we moved here, we saw a strange shape by the door (we have a glass pane on our door. This makes it slightly easy to see things through it. Or it would if a) it weren’t globbly and b) people like our postman didn’t stand well clear of the glass. However, on this occasion, we saw this strange shape, and opening the door (it helps to open the door, that way one can see out. Particularly if one pops ones head through the doorway. Have you ever popped your head? It’s difficult, believe me) we saw this rather large toad trying to get in.
We looked at each other. Well, hubby and I looked at each other. The toad might have looked at us too, it’s difficult to tell if it was looking up at us or just trying to work out how far up was ‘up’ from its position on the doorstep. A short dialogue ensued (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?) (Oh and yes, we spell it with a ‘ue’.) (Frogue? No, not frogue, dialog-ue.)
Though… I frogue, you frogue, he frogues, she frogues, they frogue.
Well, maybe.
Anyway, so this small dialog-thingy ensued:
Me: Do you think it could be…?
Him: Looks like it. It wants to come in.
Me: All the way from London?
We were amazed, but actually contemplated that one of the toads that had lived in our tiny pocket-handkerchief of a garden in London, had somehow found its way to our new home miles and miles and oh miles away. That this toad had hopped, enthusiastically, all the way to be with us. And had arrived on the doorstep. Where it had been sitting and trying to work out how to rapidly work its way up the evolutionary ladder so that it could not only reach but know how to ring the doorbell.
We’re both quite mad. Me particularly. You did know that, didn’t you?
So… (yes, I realise I should have finished there, but I’ve more to tell you)… back to the birdies.
There is a chaffinch that has taken to cheeping at us. You know the pirate’s parrot thingy of “pieces of eight, pieces of eight”? Well, I think this chaffinch is a French pirate-parrot. Why? (I’m glad you asked. If you hadn’t asked, would I have known to tell you?) He sings “Huit! Huit! Huit bits!” (I know ‘bits’ isn’t French but come on, this is a Chaffinch we’re talking about. You know – small bird, pink front, grey and brown on other bits of it, wings and feet. Well, okay claws then.) Eight bits!
Right here you’re asking yourself (or me, though that’s a bit daft as you’re not reading me, you’re reading my blog which is hidden inside your screen) “bits of what?”
Well, bits of suet, obviously.
This chaffinch asks for suet. Only he can’t count. “Huit bits” actually means ‘One bit’ because he can be sitting in the Japanese Maple huiting his heart out, with suet and seed strewn all over the ground in front of him: he won’t touch it. He will only eat when we’ve open the door specially for him and have thrown him ONE piece of suet. Then he’ll grab it and fly away with it.
Now you might be thinking, “It’s remarkable that you have taught a chaffinch such a trick as that.” When in fact, we have taught the Chaffinch no tricks, it thought it up all by itself. After, of course, watching Skinny Bob the Robin doing exactly the same. Yep, two birds doing the same thing, asking for just one suet pellet for themselves. (Though Skinny Bob says ‘Eep! Eeeep’. If you know that to be French for something other than ONE BIT OF SUET you will tell me, won’t you?)
Handle-Bibby nags…. photo by Val Erde
Handle-Bibby the Flut, when he wants food, sits on the windowsill. Every windowsill wherever he sees us. If we aren’t in a downstairs room, he flies to us upstairs. He is very obvious. How did he get the name Handle-Bibby? If we don’t feed him within a few minutes of his nagging us from the kitchen window, he flies onto the handle of the dining room doors (which have glass in them, but it isn’t globbly) and nags us from there instead. On the handle, he is at eye-level when we’re sitting at the table, facing him! Birds like to make eye-contact. I have a theory that they have no sense of height of people and other creatures, because they can fly, but whenever any of our birds can look us in the eye, they choose to do so.
Handle-Bibby and Beaky, and now Weety the Chaffinch are very direct in their language. When staring doesn’t work, they tap on the window. When tapping doesn’t work they open their beaks wide a couple of times. Beaky gets offended if not attended to quickly and turns his back on us.
There is a dunnock – out of all the dunnocks – that prefers dried mealworms to anything else going. You can put out suet, breadcrumbs, birdseed and no – this little person asks for wormblies. (Yes, we call them wormblies. What of it?) Not only asks for them but hops onto the low wall outside our front door when hubby goes out, and lands right next to him. Regularly. And deliberately. Curiously, it doesn’t have a name. Well, apart from Dunnocky Dunnock.
Yes. I know.
Oh, and we’ve a pair of collared doves – they fly to the garden nearly every day, and they’re nearly always together. And there is our visiting pheasant… His name is Fezzy 3, but he answers simply to Fezzy. Does he really answer to his name? Yes, he does, but often he comes to us before we call him. And he lets us know he’s here (as do Beaky the Blackbird, Weety the Chaffinch, Skinny Bob the Robin, Handle-Bibby the Flut, and a few others.) He has a particular ‘phrase’ that he uses on us both when he wants feeding. Sort of like “huh-uh? Huh-uh?” And a plaintive look. “Please feed me,” he says. “I am a special bird and I have never been fed before in my entire life not even by you and no I don’t remember when you fed me a moment ago.”
Come to that, it’s the same phrase all the birds use.
