A Wintry End to November

Someone is finding perfect camouflage in the freshly fallen snow - can you see him/her?

(Yes, it's a magpie.)

It had stopped snowing this morning, but it's still cold, so the snow that's come down is staying put. I decided to take the opportunity to defrost my freezer - which is best done in cold winter weather when I can put the contents out on the balcony while it goes on.

It's still always kind of a messy job that takes its time. One difficulty is that my freezer is a "half size" one that is placed above another cupboard. So one can't just place a bowl on the floor to gather the water in, but has to find other tricks to go about it, and keep a close eye on the process to make sure the melting ice/water doesn't go where it's not wanted...

When the wet and messy part was over (and while waiting for the freezer to get cold again), I went out for a short walk taking some stuff to the recycling containers; and on my way back stopped to buy some fruit at a neighbourhood convenience shop, which specialises in fruit and vegs. I kind of rediscovered this shop back in the summer, when they had quite an "exotic" display outside. (See photo below.) And now they still have quite a lot to offer in their very cramped space inside. They're only a 5 min walk from home for me, so a good alternative when it's just some extra fruit & vegs I need between my usual home deliveries from the big supermarket.

Photo from July (display outside the shop)

 

Spring Equinox

It still doesn't feel much like spring outdoors, but this week I decided to get it started indoors anyway. I put my spring/summer curtains up in the kitchen, and yesterday I walked to the florist's shop downtown and bought some new flowering pot plants + a bunch of tulips.

Kitchen window: Daffodils and kalanchoe

Bedroom window: Two different kinds of geranium

Tulips

 

Pink kalanchoe for the living room window

Busy nest-building magpie
(zoomed in through my kitchen window)

Skiving magpie enjoying the view

Watching the Birds

The temperature has dropped quite a bit over the past few days, from over 30°C last week (and too hot) to around 16°C today (and a lot of sudden rain showers pouring down every now and then).

Yesterday afternoon offered a rare interlude of neither too hot nor too cold; and then I went for a walk into the city and back (for no special errand), and on my way home sat down for a while on a bench in the old cemetery, close to this little fountain.

After a while, I had the company of a white wagtail - female, I think. She seemed to be trying to figure out how to get to the water, but I think this pool is not designed for birds (rather the opposite). But she seemed to enjoy hanging around listening to the sound of the water anyway - just like I did. And as I know that there is water to be found elsewhere in the cemetery*, I just enjoyed watching her. *(In the past, I used to wonder why all the taps where you fill the watering cans around the cemetery are always left leaking a little... But then as some point in time, I figured it out!)

 

 

After a while, she got bored with just sitting, and went to explore a stone with an inscription nearby. The text is a verse from an old hymn. If she can read, she'd probably appreciate it.

"As the bird enjoys the light of the day, so shall I one day enjoy entering the kingdom of light, while listening to the sound of harps playing and angels singing, and watching the dawn of eternity."
(free translation by me)

 I also met an "old friend": The magpie without tail feathers.

I've posted about this bird before, and then thought it must be moulting. Checking now, I almost can't believe how long ago that was - back in mid April! I have seen this bird a few more times since then - always on the ground - and have had to retract my moulting theory. It still hasn't got any tail feathers. Maybe it lost them in a fight or something?? I don't know; but it seems the cemetery has served as a safe place for it, as it has managed to survive so far.

By the way, if anyone is wondering what happened to my Blue Tits (nesting in a vent in the wall of my building) - so am I! Not long after I had posted about their comings and goings to feed their hungry little ones, I noticed one day that it was very quiet... Obviously they had taken the opportunity to move out one day when I was not looking - perhaps on some early morning. Exactly how they went about it, to get the young ones out of there on their very first flight, I'll never know! 

Shadow Shot Sunday - Magpie

On one of my walks around the old cemetery recently, I met a magpie (Eurasian magpie). I zoomed it in from a distance, and when I got the photos enlarged on my computer screen back home, I was amazed by the colours. (Usually thinking of this bird as black-and-white!) I also noticed that its feathers seem rather short - especially the tail. I got curious and started googling... My conclusion is that it must be in the process of moulting, i.e. shedding old feathers and producing new ones. (Any bird expert who disagrees is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong!)

Bird Nests, Art and Witchcraft

The answer to yesterday’s “Guess What?” is: A magpie’s nest. Not that I can say for sure whether (for the magpies) it counts as one two-storey building, or two separate nests on top of each other… To me, seen from my window, it also rather resembles a big wicker sculpture of a woman’s head and shoulders... Magpie art? ; )

Anyway – the structure has grown since I first blogged about it in March 2014:

There’s also a nest in another tree close by. You can see both of them in this photo from January 2015. Both nests have grown bigger since then, but it is the one to the left that has the “head” added on top now : )

In the cemetery nearby, I recently also noticed this tree:

My first thought was “an apartment tree for birds!” – Not sure, though… Someone yesterday suggested “witch’s broom” for my mystery picture (a kind of tree disease/deformity). While I’m pretty sure that magpies made the wicker sculpture - perhaps this other tree is “bewitched”?

Spot the Magpie

… “Spot the magpie” …
Just a little game I play with myself on a snowy day!

The pictures in the collage above are from today; the photo below from just over a week ago. Snow has been “on and off” any number of times in between, as the weather has kept shifting back and forth between snow and rain.

Mid January seems a bit early in the season to me (for the magpies to be nesting, I mean – cf my magpie post from last year), but perhaps it’s got something to do with winter so far having been rather mild. I also can’t help wondering if these two are the same couple that I watched two years ago trying, but then failing, to build a nest in the same tree. Back then, they gave me some good laughs as they seemed quite unable to figure out the art of nest-building and just kept dropping the sticks back on the ground, and finally gave up and (presumably) went in search of some other tree.

Well, whether the same couple or not, these ones now seem really determined, in spite of the snow  causing some confusion (like “oops! where’s my door?”)

Same builders or not, there are now magpie nests in both the trees in the yard outside my windows:

 

The Magpie’s Nest

Two magpies are building a nest in a tree I see from my kitchen window. They seem to be doing a somewhat better job of it than the ones (or were they the same??) who tried it in another tree close by last year.

Those two last spring must have been newly weds and inexperienced at nestbuilding, because they kept bringing one twig after another, but just couldn’t make them stick in the tree – invariably, they dropped right down to the ground again! (It was rather amusing to watch them.) After a few days of trial and error they gave up and left. Whether they found a better tree, or decided to take a building course before they tried again, I’ll never know.

The Magpie's Nest
from English Fairy Tales
by Joseph Jacobs (1890)

Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme
And monkeys chewed tobacco,
And hens took snuff to make them tough,
And ducks went quack, quack, quack, O!

ALL the birds of the air came to the magpie and asked her to teach them how to build nests. For the magpie is the cleverest bird of all at building nests. So she put all the birds round her and began to show them how to do it. First of all she took some mud and made a sort of round cake with it.

'Oh, that's how it's done,' said the thrush; and away it flew, and so that's how thrushes build their nests.

Then the magpie took some twigs and arranged them round in the mud.

'Now I know all about it,' says the blackbird, and off he flew; and that's how the blackbirds make their nests to this very day.

Then the magpie put another layer of mud over the twigs.

'Oh, that's quite obvious,' said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never made better nests since.

After this the magpie took some twigs and twined them round the outside.

'The very thing!' said the sparrow, and off he went; so sparrows make rather slovenly nests to this day.

Well, then Madge Magpie took some feathers and stuff and lined the nest very comfortably with it.

'That suits me,' cried the starling, and off it flew; and very comfortable nests have starlings.

So it went on, every bird taking away some knowledge of how to build nests, but none of them waiting to the end. Meanwhile Madge Magpie went on working and working without looking up till the only bird that remained was the turtle-dove, and that hadn't paid any attention all along, but only kept on saying its silly cry: 'Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o.'

At last the magpie heard this just as she was putting a twig across. So she said: 'One's enough.'

But the turtle-dove kept on saying: 'Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o.,

Then the magpie got angry and said: 'One's enough, I tell you.'

Still the turtle dove cried: 'Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o.'

At last, and at last, the magpie looked up and saw nobody near her but the silly turtle-dove, and then she got rarely angry and flew away and refused to tell the birds how to build nests again. And that is why different birds build their nests differently.