A rare sight of both “families” together - normally we have to keep them segregated because Soo would fight the other roos. This time, we managed to keep him in while the others had a chance to mingle (mostly) peaceably. The other absentees are Bella and, er, Tiger Lily*, currently still in confinement.
*Not my idea, but it does allow one half to be dropped once we know what s/he is. The person responsible isn’t a TA listener, so has no idea of the significance
On the bird subject, I noticed a pigeon acting oddly on our lawn yesterday, in quite heavy rain.
It was sat on the lawn, out in the open. Quite risky as we have a sparrowhawk here regularly. It seemed to make a small hollow. It occasionally got up & walked around in a tight circle, then shuffled itself down again. As it settled it opened its wings in a sort of umbrella shape.
Today we noticed a nest in the Hawthorn tree had been disturbed and was hanging down off the branch at an angle. Beneath were 2 broken eggs.the poor thing had been nesting & acting as if it was incubating whilst on our lawn.
If there’s a predator around, it may not have been from that nest. Feigning injury or, as in this case, false brooding are quite common decoy behaviours.
That’s exactly what they do; the idea is that they look like easy prey. They let the predator get close - away from the real nest - and then (unless they miscalculate badly) fly off at the last minute.
Watching the Killdeer Bird made me think about the Ringed Plovers whose eggs among pebbles were so difficult to spot when yomping across a beach in NW Scotland, many times, many years ago. Oh! and the Shelducks, who nested in disused rabbit warrens outside our kitchen window. Happy memories! We’ll be off to NWS in a couple of weeks. No yomping required, these days, but we’ll have our eyes peeled for the birdies.
Soo xx
Just been browsing through some old photos. A couple of years ago, we were building on and ordered a mirror for the new bathroom. At least we thought it was for the new bathroom—some had other ideas…