The Oystercatchers

As you've been able to gather from my recent posts: even if we had some rain here lately, it has hardly been of biblical Deluge proportions. So when this morning I spotted some Eurasian Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) on the lawn below my balcony, I kind of wondered if they too have come to rely on human weather apps for information, rather than going by their natural instincts... (The Swedish name for them is strandskata, which would literally translate as "Beach Magpie" in English.) 

The lawns may have been given a decent watering over the past couple of days, but if they were hoping to find oysters, I think they must have been disappointed...

Just joking, of course. The river is only a few hundred meters away, and I have occasionally seen these birds around the neighbourhood before - even if not recently. They are rare guests compared to our usual everyday summer mix of seagulls, pigeons, magpies, crows and jackdaws. But yesterday morning, three or four visiting Oystercatchers seemed to have taken over the territory of this lawn from all the other kinds of big birds usually seen there, and had it all to themselves. And I found this interesting enough to go and fetch my Sony camera with some zoom possibilites, and snap a few photos...

Wikipedia tells me that despite the bird's name, oysters do not form a large part of the Oystercatcher's diet. It still lives up to its name, though, as few (if any) other wading birds are capable of opening oysters. It seems the shape of their bill can vary between individuals. Oystercatchers with broad bill tips open molluscs by prising them apart or hammering through the shell, whereas pointed-bill birds dig up worms.

So I guess what we see here is more a case of  "the early bird hoping the catch the worm"...

 

Observations

 

Zoomed in from my window last night (with my proper camera rather than my phone): A hare sitting completely still in this position on a path between my building and the next - probably doing his best to be invisible... Not very successful in that envionment, but I've often seen them "freeze" like that on gravel paths in the cemetery, when there are people about. What had scared him, I don't know - from my own elevated position I could not see anyone about. He even stayed frozen like a statue that way while I went to fetch the camera, zoomed in, and snapped the photo, so at least over a minute. And he wasn't even really close to any of the new strange additions to the neighbourhood: Big stones painted in bright colours!

 

The summer holidays have started; and in summer, there are always a number of young people doing odd jobs around here - mostly to do with simple gardening jobs and litter-picking etc. 

Painting stones is a new task that I've not seen before... The big stones, in their natural state, have been there before: Their purpose is to stop cars from taking shortcuts across the lawns. The colours used to paint them (bright yellow, purple and blue) I recognise from benches around the estate that have also recently been (re-)painted. Whether also painting big stones is really an improvement to the neighbourhood might be a matter for discussion... Personally, I haven't quite made up my mind about that yet! (lol) 

The rabbit did not appear until later, so at least he won't have got painted by mistake. 

Now I'm just waiting to spot birds with yellow, bright blue or purple feathers, indicating that they've landed on wet paint... But maybe they're too clever for that... ;-)

Big flocks of birds can be seen scanning the lawns after the lawn-mower has been and gone. (Mostly doves/pigeons in this photo, I think. But there are also crows, jackdaws, magpies and sea gulls to give them some competition.)
 
Apart from this, no strange observations to report.

 

Thump!

 A largish, fuzzy, grey-and-black ball of something fell from a huge tree above and landed on the ground with a thump just beside the footpath. It shook itself a little, and among its grey fuzzy feathers a black eye looked at me...

Up above, a lot of upset cawing was heard. I'm no expert at crow language, but I think the conversation went something like this:

- I told you he was not ready to fly yet! Why did you have to push him??
- But he should be fully fledged by now! We can't keep him in the nest forever!!
- But look at him ! He hardly even knows how to move his wings! He might be hurt!!
- Oh, I'm sure he'll be all right... Just give him a moment... He'll figure it out...
- How?? If he couldn't get the hang of it from up here, how on earth is he going to get started from down there?? Oh no, look... There's a human down there as well, and she has seen him... At least help me caw as loud as you can to scare her away!!

 

 Both of them were now cawing so loud that I could no longer make out what they were saying. Guessing that at least some of it was aimed at me rather than at their offspring, I decided to back off and leave them to sort out their family quarrel among themselves. 

Curiosity drove me back to the spot some 10-15 minutes later, though. The fledgling was still on the ground, but seemed to have moved into a slightly less ruffled and more comfortable-looking position (as in the photo). The parents were still cawing loudly from above - whether quarreling, giving flying instructions, or just warning him about human presence again was hard to tell. As I have absolutely zero experience of teaching birds to fly, I again decided I had better just trust them to solve the situation their own way, though. At least the only wild animals in the cemetery (besides other birds) are the two hares, who I think are unlikely to interfere...

 

Birdwatching

The little Red House bird feeder in the cemetery has stayed in place since its last return; and the birds seem to appreciate it. The ones using it that I've managed to identify so far are Great Tit (very common around here), Bullfinch and (I think) Greenfinch. *

Not much use trying to capture any of them with my phone; but yesterday when I had my other camera, I managed to zoom some in from a "respectful distance".

* (Swedish: Talgoxe, Domherre, Grönfink.)

 

 

Soothing Sounds of Spring

 

 

I keep mentioning the old cemetery close to where I live, where I go walking almost daily. Besides being a place where I watch the seasonal changes in trees and flowers etc, I also enjoy listening to the birds. So it occurred to me that perhaps I should share with you some of the sounds I hear when I walk there as well.

 

Alas I'm no good at identifying birds by their song, though - and usually they are too far away from me to see, high up in the tree tops. Today (2nd video), as I approached the graveyard chapel, I was able to see that the singer was a tiny bird perched on top of the cross over the entrance. Too far away for me to see what kind, though. If anyone thinks they recognise the sound, please tell me in the comments! :)

I have a clever bird book that also includes recorded sound of birds - but with about 180 different ones included, when one hasn't even got a good guess to start with, that actually doesn't help much!! ;)

 

Bird-in-a-bush

 

Did you start looking for a bird in that first picture? Sorry! There isn't one (I think). But according to Wikipedia, bird-in-a-bush is one of the names for this flower.

When I came across the flower on my walk today, I had no idea what it was called in any language, Swedish included. So I used Google Image Search to find out. 

It seems to be one of those plants that go by many different names. In Swedish it's called stor nunneört. A direct translation of that to English would be something like "big nun's herb" (but implying it's the herb that's big rather than the nun). In Latin it's called Corydalis solida. In English, it's goes by the names fumewort and bird-in-a-bush. Another article on only Corydalis adds that the name comes from Greek korydalís = crested lark. (Latin Galerida cristata, Swedish tofslärka). 

So does "bird in a bush" refer to crested lark? I still had difficulties quite seeing it...

Image from Wikipedia

But then I read on a bit further still about the bird, and found this passage: 

Francis of Assisi considered the crested lark a bird of special significance, based on similarities he perceived between it and the life of the Friars Minor: its plain earth-coloured plumage and hood, its humility ("for it goes willingly along the wayside and finds a grain of corn for itself"), and its time spent in song.

Now perhaps we're getting there? The flower also grows along the wayside, and "sings quietly" (but with colour rather than sound).

(PS. In the article about the crested lark, there are also a couple of video clips where you can listen to it sing, sitting on the ground.)

Blessed Silence

As some might recall me mentioning before, back in spring/summer I was having problems with being frequently disturbed by a neighbour's noisy bird.  

It started last winter but kept getting worse, and during summer became even more annoying, as then the neighbour also kept their balcony door open most of the day.  

I kept thinking of complaining to our housing company's office; but I hate conflicts, and could not really think of a "solution" other than the neighbour getting rid of the bird altogheter, which I wasn't sure was something I could demand.

It was also more about being frequently disturbed, rather than each session always lasting very long. (But that one would never know until afterwards!) Was I to try to report an ongoing disturbance by phone, it was likely to stop (pause) before I managed to get through to anyone. And in the nighttime I did not hear it. (I imagine the owner throwing a blanket over its cage in the evenings and until next morning.)

Summer came, and with it the usual period of noise from big birds outdoors: seagulls, crows and magpies fighting each other over food, and anxious to protect their own young offspring. And with that background noise added, it seemed even harder to "plead my case" about the single pet bird next door (even if to my ears, that was still much worse!).

In July, neighbour + animals (there's also a dog) went away for three weeks or so. Blessed silence reigned for a while in their absence - and my nerves calmed down... But at the same time, that also made me realise how much the frequent daily screeches from that bird had really come to affect me!

Sounds of silence

... And as soon as they were back from their holiday, it all started again. 

After my own mini holiday in August, I decided to keep daily notes for a while (time of day, for how long, frequence etc); and after a couple of weeks of that, I did try to sum up my complaints in an email to the landlord's office.

After a week or so I got a reply back that they had talked to my neighbour. (Their general policy is discretion towards both parties, so no details about what was said.) I did not really expect any sudden major change... But after that, it did actually seem like the owner was probably at least trying not to encourage the bird to chatter away as much as before.

 

However: Since the beginning of October I haven't heard a single chirp. And as there have still been sounds/signs of normal human activity, I'm actually beginning to think (fingers crossed!) that a new home must have been found for the bird - somewhere else entirely. (Hopefully permanently, and with someone living in a house of their own this time...)

Blessed Silence

All illustrations in this post created with the help of Microsoft Bing Image Creator.

Now What?

 

Looking right...

Looking left...

Looking up, looking down, looking back...

When wondering what on earth to blog about now, after having finished my series of holiday photos, these photos of pigeons visiting my balcony just after I came back home turned up - and on closer inspection made me laugh, as they seem to illustrate my predicament...

I'll leave you looking at them, while I go and catch up with some other things I need to do!

The Fight for Bread

Someone had dropped a full unopened plastic bag of bread on the driveway. 

First  to investigate was a seagull.

 

 

But the jackdaws were watching...

 

 

Once the seagull had done the hard work (penetrating the plastic wrapping, to actually access the bread), the other birds approached, too.

 

 They had the advantage of being in majority... 

 

After a while it got nasty!  

Looked like the jackdaws had won the battle for a while... They were soon also joined by a couple of magpies though, and then the gull made a comeback too (which I did not catch on camera). Between them all, it did not take long until all that was left on the ground was a badly beaten, empty plastic bag!

(Watched from my window)

- - -

I'll be taking a week or two off from blogging, because (if all goes to plan) in a couple of days I'll be going off on a little holiday trip. Feels like quite an adventure, as I haven't been out of town since B.C. (=Before Corona)! Tomorrow I'll be washing and packing. On Thursday my brother will drive down here, and on Friday we set off together. We'll be going back up to Karlstad where he lives, around 300 km north of her. But we'll be making a bit of a detour including a hotel night elsewhere on the way. Then I'll be staying with him for a few days, before he drives me back home again.  

I lived for 10 years in K-d myself, way back in my 20s; but now it's been a long time since my last visit. So expecting both some nostalgia and trying to get my head round a lot of changes! 

Well. If you don't see me around in Blogland (much) for a while, you know why. Hopefully I'll have all the more to show and tell when I get back!

Hostility in the Air

Going for a snowy walk the othe rday I had a Hitchcock horror movie flashback… In the treetops above my head, there was very loud chattering going on. Looking up one tree I was rather surprised to see it full of magpies. Not sure if they were having choir practice or some sort of conference… ; ) In my experience, magpies don’t often appear in big flocks like that – a whole tree full. Then I looked at the birds in a couple of other trees nearby. The sounds coming from there were a bit different. Crows, or jackdaws... Anyway, both groups of birds seemed to be doing their best to be as noisy as possible – and I got a definite feeling of hostility in the air!

Refreshing my memory on the Hitchcock movie in Wikipedia just now, I find a recent paragraph added at the end of that article, informing me that the BBC is making a television series out of 'The Birds', to be broadcasted in 2018 -  set in Cornwall, and based more on the original Daphne du Maurier novelette than Hitchcock’s movie. Perhaps these birds were auditioning for it…They certainly did put up quite a show!

Through My Lens: Little Sparrow

On Saturday afternoon, I went and sat for a while in another of the town's many little parks; only a short walk from where I live, down by the river, where there is a little dam and waterfall.

I liked the view better before that high tower block (above) was added a few years ago... but never mind... The flowers are pretty, and the sound from the waterfall pretty much drowns out the traffic noise from the roads nearby.

After a while I got company: A little bird came and sat on one of those high trellises nearby. I couldn't see it very well with my bare eye from where I sat, but it looked small and kind of fluffy. And from the way it just kept sitting there, I got the impression that it was probably a young one, perhaps not all that used to flying yet. After a while I took out my camera and zoomed it in. It also gave me a chance to practice using the optical viewfinder on the new camera, together with the zoom. The bird didn't seem bothered by my movements. I thought perhaps it didn't hear the camera sounds because of the waterfall...

 
... But looking at the pictures afterwards I get the impression that it was watching me just as much as I was watching it!

After a while, another bird came along. It only stopped for a short while, but I got the impression that it was probably Mum (or perhaps Dad - I'm not really sure how they divide the childcare between them!). Anyway it seemed to be touching beaks with the young one, as if feeding it something. Alas, I didn't manage to quite catch that moment. But you can see in the photo below that for a while there were two. "Mum" soon took off again, though - while the young one remained sitting.

 

After a while I dared to get up and walk around to take photos from a different angle. The bird stayed where it was, but turned its head around to keep an eye on me...

I think it must be a young sparrow - what do you think? 

It must eventually have taken off while I went for a little stroll to the other end of the park. When I turned back, it had left.

Linking to Through My Lens