Great titmice.

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So this is our bird feeder during this winter. Pay attention to how cleverly it is protected from rain. It also has holes in the bottom to let those raindrops that sometimes get there leak outside.

The bird feeder with its happy visitors:

Most of birds happened to be great and blue tits though robins came occasionally.

These days the feeder doesn’t stay out of business. Families of birds that successfully went through winter, come here with their chicks. Parents great and blue tits, the very those that were coming here during cold days, listen to loud quarrels their youngsters make and put, put, put endless sunflower seeds in yellow mouthes. What can I say? Mums and dads. They are so recognizable now. Exhausted, with their feathers washed out and jutted out, they nevertheless (and happily) can always find a bit of a treat here in those minutes when they have absolutely no vigour for catching insects anymore. 

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Crag martins live here:

Caves they use (these manmade are among them) are usually cold. Nevertheless, birds insulate their nests with down and feathers to keep warm. 

Rocks are above and around crag martins. Rocks are old and wrinkled.

In another caves we saw ceilings nests. We don’t know weather they belong to crag martins or other Hirundinidae but we were excited to discover that birds that had built them used cracks in caves’ ceilings. Yes, ceilings. Those cracks couldn’t have accommodated eggs without the latter constantly falling down if birds hadn’t been choosing cracks with such shapes that actually form something similar to caves inside caves’ walls. Cracks’ openings are only small doors to bigger holes inside ceilings. Those “houses” protect eggs and young birds. Youngsters should only stick to each other and cozy together. 

Birds returning to their chicks (we heard them squeaking from the inside):

In flight crag martins are astonishing:

It is easy to distinguish them from other Hirundinidae because of those visible whitish spots on their tails once spread:

This bird has an unusual spot on its throat:

Crag martins are clearly visible against the sky, but once placed onto rocks background, these quite modestly coloured birds melt into it:

There are many and many species of birds living around. I’m happy to discover new. They make me feel bewildered and touched at the same time. Crag martins seem to be mysterious creatures. They build their nests inside billion-year old rocks, have big, appearing as half-closed eyes, and fly quickly. But it’s a real pleasure to stay near of rufous caves and see them flitting around. Because they are alive, because they fly so graciously and effortlessly, because they are able to raise their chicks in such tough conditions, because they are beautiful - I admire them.

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A bicycle ride in the unexplored area will definitely have some surprises. But this one! To cut long story short - we met donkeys for the first time in our lives. They were different from what we’d expected. Firstly, taller. Secondly, smarter. This common fairytales’ image of them - as stubborn, not big, endure animals - seemed to be much simplified, less aware of donkeys as curious and friendly creatures we’re now sure they are. Well, those fairytales’ people often need a tool and they don’t care whether that tool is alive.

Anyway, we were so pleased to meet the donkeys! As soon as we saw them and yelled surprisingly, they started moving in our direction, too:

They kept eating on their way, it was funny:

Actually, we were a bit scared as once they started walking towards us, they didn’t seem to change their route. We even thought they were going to attack us.

But when they really came close, we understood that they actually had been used to people (of course!) and came to meet us in hope to get something from us. Pay attention to that bellflower in the bottom left corner of the photo below - it is going to be a treat soon:

Donkeys appeared to be hairier than horses with their ears bigger and a lot fluffier. As soon as first of them arrived, it gave us the look:

And it gazed at us, as if waiting for something:

Eventually, everybody joined the party:

They understood quickly that we didn’t have much to give to them. Had decided that they would probably continue with foraging on their own, they examined the wall supporting the road we were on. We felt as letting them down. What should we have done? That’s when that bellflower went:

Like many other flowers and weeds on that wall, it was eaten. Here’s some close-ups of donkeys:

With its wonderfully coloured ears lying...:

...and sticking out:

As you can see, donkeys’ coats are not only ‘gray’ as many fairytales try to persuade us, but have different colours depending on species. What’s more, donkeys are not actually plain. This one below, for example, not only light rufous, but has some brown lines on its neck, tail, shoulders, mane, ears, face, and legs (as far as we can see as something may be not visible on photographs). In some places (inside ears, around a nose, on a belly) the coat is whitish. The manes of donkeys we saw were reddish brown, short, and jutted. Their eyes were big, and friendly, and beautiful.

After our new acquaintances made sure we hadn’t had other treats left and all the flowers on that wall were successfully eaten, the party seemed to become rather boring for them, and donkeys left unhurriedly. Farewell!

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Everything is blooming. I mean, everything. It’s pity, that people tend to only mention big blossoming, like this one:

They can notice those:

And their garden ones:

Which is all right, as long as they notice them at all. But they miss so much more. It’s like to be able to really see something only if that one is at least mid-size balloon big. How about these flowers, that had gone not so far from your garden inhabitants, but are smaller?

It’s not only roses that bring spring to you. It’s incomparably much more those small blossoming flowers that you never bother to look at. They sometimes form whole carpets like this one below and this is what you actually miss when winter comes:

Looking at them in those carpets is a delight, but if you lean closer, they give you some food for thought, they can perfectly entertain once you allow them to involve yourself and stop being bored.

How about grass? Weed? Do they really blossom? Yes, they are! Look closer! It is spring! It comes only once a year! These ones below, for example. I call them sparklers as they blossom from bottom to the top, can you imagine this?

I have my favourite grass flowers since my childhood, its flowers are flakey, soft and warm to feel:

How about these?

These aerials? (Needed just to bend my knees a bit).

There’s always something else you don’t bother yourself to see. The easy ones:

A bit tougher (do notice small blue flowers all around that central, obvious, one):

This is tough one even if you concentrate on dandelion only rather than trying to notice as much as you can - that green mass of everything else around it, for example:

How about putting it like this? Not so comfortable for eyes, need some attention, doesn’t it? (Everything is blossoming, just in case you’ve forgotten).

Really tough:

These two above are from common weeds growing everywhere. And even if you got rid of them in your own garden, they or their relatives still bloom somewhere around. Their flowers are really small, but noticeable. It means, they do change the environment around you. It is not to mention that if you give them a couple of minutes and try to examine thoroughly, you would be astonished. I am going to show what happens in that case in one of my next posts. But still:

Green kingdom with its own light, sounds, and rules:

I wanted to say something for the end of this post, but what’s worth mentioning is that that it’s really shame that people stick to two-three big flowers which names and fragrance are familiar to them during all their lives and don’t even try to look in other sides. It is the same when they keep pigeons and sparrows pictures under “Birds” in their mind library. I really think that if more people pay attention to as many animals, birds, flowers, and trees as they can around, they would be less aggressive. Education, education, education again.

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This is what it looks like when the goosefish goes fishing.

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Check the link above and learn something about the goosefish’s veil!

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In Gerald Durrell’s The Drunken Forest book the author describes rufous hornero nest. This unbelievable sphere has ingenious design which covers birds’ need to be protected. Durrell’s books are the real pleasure to read so do if you haven’t yet.

We’re familiar with mud houses because of swallows. And now is certainly swallows’ time. We meet them everywhere. Oh boy, they are so busy these days! They’re hurrying to build their nests as quick as possible - just like other birds around.

The other day we were riding bicycles along the coastline heading to the other city. This small piece of coast could have never attracted our attention:

But we saw something when we’d just turned toward that site before. Those were swallows. With their whirring calls they left the coast and startled, flew away. We decided to wait for some time and make the distance between that spot we’d seen them on and us bigger. We sat quietly and waited. And then!

And!

Not just scroll down! Their tails! Do you see that aerial-like tail of barn swallow arriving? We were stunned as birds kept coming. We photographed them from that long distance in order not to disturb them. We understood that they were collecting clay to build their nests at a glance. 

Birds were gathering on that small spot - and not just barn swallows but house martins as well:

They were coming from different sides:

That’s when we had a possibility to see their wonderful colours. House martins’ backs, for example, are navy blue but when in flight those birds are so fast that usually we are only able to see their silhouettes:

Isn’t it wonderful that being in need of wet soil birds eventually found that spot and start coming there? Barn swallow’s back in the photos below is iridescent blue, just as house martins’ ones, but swallow’s forehead and throat are saturated red. That’s why I really like barn swallows’ latin hame - Hirundo rustica. For me it is suggestive as I immediately imagine somebody from village, healthy, and with plumpy red cheeks. 

Barn swallow is surrounded by house martins. It is bigger and as my bird guidebook informs, a bit heavier, too. I feel enchanted looking at those photos. Those fast, noisy, gracious, and elusive birds were clearly visible and while they were collecting, photographable. I almost cannot believe it:

And then they started leaving the place:

Mostly we see house martins and barn swallows in flight. We often see barn swallows sitting on power lines - they adore chatting there. In fact, all these birds feel more comfortable flying as their legs are quite weak. So it was a real miracle to see them sitting on the ground. But I felt their vulnerability as well.

Some close-ups:

A hawk, isn’t it?

My birds guide book says about barn swallows that they “can drink water from the water surface on flight”.

Collecting:

Here’s the video showing barn swallow:

Gerald Durrell, by the way, wrote many books about animals, insects, birds and different living creatures, he had wonderful novelist talent. I appreciate his books and I really respect and admire his long creating and protective work. I think that those novels and short stories of him partly made me who I’m now and helped in creating my views over nature and nature protection.

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Wisteria! “The Tale of Genji” is full of it. It’s exciting but a bit eerie feeling to be able to see the same flowers ancient Japanese had written so many poems about and most of all - had sent to their beloved with scented, tone-matching paper with just a short tanka or long love letter on it. They’d smelt this dizzy aroma and enjoyed the mass of flowers. They’d done it, done it! But I still cannot realize completely that these wonderful vines here are the same type of plants that had blossomed as well thousand years ago.

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I still cannot believe that this has happened, but we’ve seen the loon bird with our own eyes! For me, the possibility of meeting like this was a plot from fairy tales. It is all because of mystery loons’ fantastic migration habits are shrouded in - who haven’t heard of enormous distances grey northern loons manage to fly and their endurance? And Wikipedia also adds: “Its flying speed is as much as 120 km/h (75 mph) during migration.” Our one is black-throated loon. Here it is!

Such a grace! It moves astonishingly! Legs are seemed to be strong and they are nicely coloured:

I really like the way it moves, and the shape of its body, and this long, spotless, final accord beak it has. About legs however, I did decide mistakenly that they had been hurt as they moved sort of away of bird’s body; I hadn’t known about certain details of loons’ body structure. In fact, legs of these birds are arranged in this close-to-tail way. Wikipedia helps again: “Its clumsiness on land is due to the legs being positioned at the rear of the body: this is ideal for diving but not well-suited for walking. When the birds land on water, they skim along on their bellies to slow down, rather than on their feet, as these are set too far back. The loon swims gracefully on the surface, dives as well as any flying bird [...]” (it’s about great northern loons).

Loons have unique voices. As I’ve discovered, they are really famous because of their voices and calls’ variations. Here the examples are (here are great northern loons’ voice examples as well). The examples are from wonderful xeno-canto I’ve written about, and you simply cannot miss this!

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A baby echidna is making a remarkable recovery at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, after being left seriously injured when its burrow was dug up by a bulldozer. The puggle was first brought to the Wildlife Hospital at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo with a deep wound to the side of its body, after its nursery burrow was accidentally dug up by a bulldozer in Coonamble just before Christmas.

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 Picture: Paul Fahy/Rex Features (via Animal pictures of the week: 17th April 2015 - Telegraph)

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Hi everyone! As you may or may not know, today is Earth Day and it wouldn’t be complete without sharing with you some notable causes to mark the occasion! Some of the biggest names in conservation and, likewise, Earth Day celebrations are as you would imagine..some of the...

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People produce hope. You can help them.

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A young owl (wild) shelters amongst the bluebells in Micheldever Woods, Hampshire, for its mother to return 

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Picture: Victoria Jones/Solent News & Photo Agency (via Pictures of the day: 22 April 2015 - Telegraph)

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Bluebells again! Just the same as at previous post reblogged from Allcreatures (like it so much and really recommend!). I’m dreaming, dreaming with this fluffy fluffie!

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Micheldever Woods, Hampshire 

Picture: Victoria Jones/Solent News (via Pictures of the day: 28 April 2015 - Telegraph)

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I feel like it is a dream and I like it so much I don’t want to wake up.

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Spring is here and while everything is blooming, we accidentally spotted little egret with its baby! Firstly we hadn’t noticed the juvenile:

But then!

It is greyish beige, long necked and truly adorable:

The mother (or the father) is astonishing. Look how it flies! By the way, toes on its legs are yellow while legs themselves are black. We have missed little egrets’ breeding season so no long feathers celebration, but how wonderful these birds are just by their own!

We followed it with a glance - breathtaking. You literally forget about everything when look at such beauties. And there are wonders and wonders everywhere around us. I can only regret that so many people don’t ever notice them.

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I read an article somewhere some time ago where the author suddenly understood that most of her adult life she spent planning, implementing plans, completing scenarios and being not busy, but rather not concentrating on something important which her toddler daughter for example was concentrated on, even when the author was resting. She (the author it is) found herself seeing her daughter off to kindergarten having the aim to finally reach it, while they had to make a lot of stops at their way during which the baby girl was sniffing flowers, looking at birds, touching leaves and not thinking about aims but rather fully being now. Yes, the mother is excusable - she has a lot of to do before and after that kindergarten route - many points of plan to tick out. But all of a sudden she realized that she’d stopped noticing a lot of things around and was sort of in a rut even though it was a usual example of average adult life - not that psychology case at all. She felt she was loosing something, still the same kind of life was performed by too many around of her without complains - not a psychology case at all, as I said.

Some time ago I also realized that I stopped touching things, for example - a habit from my childhood that allowed me to understand and remember them better. I spent hours playing and tinkering with old broken tiles, poles, rubber tubes, rusty pots and everything that could catch my eye and always caught my hands as a consequence. Maybe, this is one of the reasons I remember things from my childhood so vividly and much better than today’s ones - that yellow doll and that metal car. I knew what they were made of and which details they had.

Nowadays I only take a quick look at things (often bored) because, obviously, there are always much more awaiting to look at while it’s not easy to concentrate at every each thing and also because time is scarce and I probably think subconsciously that I’ve seen enough of paper cups before. It’s partially true, but I believe that in that struggle to keep time we only lose it more and more. Instead of keeping energy, we drop it here and there trying not to notice too many things around. It often turns out that in that “other things” basket appear things which actually are opposite to being tired and lacking time, which restore us and are the best helpers in energy keeping - long views over nature landscapes and sniffing flowers as to start with.

Also although It was simmering to turn into something for some time, it hasn’t been until just recently when I fully realized that after I die, it will be no spring for me at all. There will be the new spring starting but no me to see all its wonderful invigorating green shadows, breath with its fresh air, feel its sudden winds and become soaking wet under its rains. No winter for me, no rain, no autumn, no summer, forever.

A few days ago a character in a film I was watching, said: “You’re alive. Live!”

Here are some photos of pigeons bathing. I know that it seems like nothing interesting - birds do bathing regularly. But as all of us, they are and they movements are unique and will never repeat here and in the same way again - it’s not mentioning the pure fun one can have giving just ten minutes to them, the very same ten minutes we use for passing streets trying to not look into shops windows, thinking about summer plans, work puzzles, and that rude woman from the subway.

They started quietly. But while on pigeons’ subject one can’t be sure about just how long that silence is going to be silent. Because, as you can see, helping forces are coming from the right.

At last! It arrives!

I hope you can see the movement of that arrogant legs of newer one!

And they started!

I suppose, you’re familiar with how birds bath - crouching to have some water on their backs, puffing their plumage until every feather sticks out, flapping wings and looking absolutely out of place, funny and yet too haughty to admit they’re having fun with those highly-concentrated expressions on their faces!

The guy on the left seems to be unable to stand it anymore. But it’s just a trick to get some water all over it!

Fresh water runs all the time so pigeons are completely in heaven, wet and happy.

“Do it like me!” I’m pretty sure I could have joined them barefoot if it hadn’t been a bit cold.

My granny used to say” “Sit and relax. You work will always be with you”, which is true. Whatever we do, we continue doing that. To keep going, we need those minutes of taking long looks at what’s around of us, or we’ll be dead with no memories to bring with us about many springs we had had.

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I’m surely not a person suitable to say the grace of blooming irises that are freshened by rain on the picture below. They simply contain that breathtaking beauty when in absolute silence with heart full of regret for that as hard you tried you couldn’t save even one precise copy of their appearance in your mind to have an absolute, always here, picture of them, you just stay and watch them as long as you can:

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Paul Dinning shares such wonderful videos, they can be watched as therapy films:

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Black redstart in flight shows its brightly burning tail.