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From Our Gardens 2025

We have a regular pair of crows who vist our garden. I think they must have chicks they are feeding. They seem to have found a source of bread which they bring to our garden and soak it in the water bowl we leave out everyday and make it all mushy to feed the chicks.

 
Mark Tooze said:
After consulting a bird book we think they are Tawny Owls - have been with us for the last 3 nights. If they come back tonight I have 2 Canon speedlites waiting to try and get some better photos!
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thats great mark...fingers crossed they pay a visit tonight

lyn
 
Morturn said:
We have a regular pair of crows who vist our garden. I think they must have chicks they are feeding. They seem to have found a source of bread which they bring to our garden and soak it in the water bowl we leave out everyday and make it all mushy to feed the chicks.

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That's exactly what the crows do in our garden. Whatever I throw out to them they dunk it in the bird bath!
 
Tawny Owl update - last night the 2 chicks (without mom unfortunately) arrived whilst it was still light enough to see them, so we managed to get some decent-ish photos:-
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Then the one chick flew away for a bit:-
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By now it was dark so we had to use flash again - the chick was eye-balling me:-
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Then they were both together again:-
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for the last 2 evenings same time i have seen about 6 to 8 what could be pigeons but smaller.. white in colour circling over head for about 20 mins...they seem smaller than the usual pigeon and seem to flap their wings a lot faster...the odd thing is that at least half of them have bright red wings as though someone has sprayed them...would anyone know why ? is it to ward off predators ? are they racers i wonder

lyn
 
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The redwing (turdus iliacus) sort of gets there, it has a creamy white chest with brown flecks, and a bright red or orange underwing. A bit small to make you think of a pigeon though, more thrush sized. Certainly flaps faster than a pigeon.

On an adjacent topic, and to bring it directly to the forum, did you know that there is a Birmingham roller pigeon ? Bred in Brum for racing and showing. Apparently had a distinct flying pattern that makes it very fast. Not what you saw because they are brownish.

Andrew
 
i had some birds land on the grass that looked very much like pigeons with red wings but they were not pigeons or fredwings never saw them again. prob a visitor to this country

www.allaboutbirds.org

Red-billed Pigeon Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Beautifully shaded in soft purple, pink, and blue-gray, the Red-billed Pigeon is a widespread inhabitant of tropical deciduous forests from Costa Rica to the Rio Grande of southern Texas. This large pigeon spends most of its time high above the ground, plucking fruits and berries from the crowns...
www.allaboutbirds.org www.allaboutbirds.org

 
With the warm weather, we have a lot of these running about. This one is about 120mm long. They come in two main colours (flavours), this brownish and also a greenish version. They do tend to argue with each other, and bite each others tails off. Fortunately they can regrow a tail, and this one looks like that may have happened in the past. They jack themselves right up as high as they can get on their legs when they run, (very quickly) and it looks a bit comical to see them scattering in front of us as we walk about. When they do it in the grass, it looks like they are swimming. They run along the ground, or straight up the wall no problem. They go up under the gutter, and then under the tiles into the loft. No problems with them, except when one got into the lounge. That was fun for all of us.

Andrew.
 

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Cabbage/Small whites may prefer cabbage to lay their eggs, but in my garden they prefer radish leaves { probably because i don`t grow cabbage } Red Admiral butterflies seem to be zooming round my garden as if they are on `something` Maybe a neighbour has got a cannabis plant growing!
 
Smudger said:
Cabbage/Small whites may prefer cabbage to lay their eggs, but in my garden they prefer radish leaves { probably because i don`t grow cabbage } Red Admiral butterflies seem to be zooming round my garden as if they are on `something` Maybe a neighbour has got a cannabis plant growing!
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Smudger, you never know these days :)
 
Smudger said:
Cabbage/Small whites may prefer cabbage to lay their eggs, but in my garden they prefer radish leaves { probably because i don`t grow cabbage } Red Admiral butterflies seem to be zooming round my garden as if they are on `something` Maybe a neighbour has got a cannabis plant growing!
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Smudger I've noticed this year the amount of cabbage white plus a few admirals/clowns or whatever they are I'm just pleased to see them it gives us hope for the future . I used to have a fair amount of bees on my lavendar plants alas due to the state og the plants I dug them up but I did take cuttings and they are doing well so I can't comment on how many bee's there would have been this year .
 
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