Nature notes 2022 (1)
Feb. 24th, 2022 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anna_wingSome action in the areca palms this morning. The local squirrel showed up to finish the last of the fruit (the cats still there visibly hoping that it will fall, but no luck so far), followed by a pair of crows raiding the stems for nesting material.
Nesting season is starting, so crows are everywhere, flying busily about with twigs in their beaks, and tugging furiously at likely bits of bush in the office garden. The koels aka Asian Cuckoos, are more in evidence too, getting ready to parasitise crow nests. One flew into the glass windows next to my front door (unlike everyone else, who used to fly into the glass patio doors at the back, until I put up the anti-birdstrike decals), but fortunately didn't kill itself the way the smaller birds tend to. Since the cats aren't allowed in the front, it had a bit of time to sit and recover before flying off, without being killed and eaten on the spot.
The sparrows are back in AirBnB. We cleaned out the old nests last year, so they have re-built, this time clearly with the remains of an old string mop.
I have given up on the kaffir lime, since it produces neither fruit nor useable leaves, and isn't that ornamental either. Now thinking what I can replace it with. A different citrus, possibly.
Nesting season is starting, so crows are everywhere, flying busily about with twigs in their beaks, and tugging furiously at likely bits of bush in the office garden. The koels aka Asian Cuckoos, are more in evidence too, getting ready to parasitise crow nests. One flew into the glass windows next to my front door (unlike everyone else, who used to fly into the glass patio doors at the back, until I put up the anti-birdstrike decals), but fortunately didn't kill itself the way the smaller birds tend to. Since the cats aren't allowed in the front, it had a bit of time to sit and recover before flying off, without being killed and eaten on the spot.
The sparrows are back in AirBnB. We cleaned out the old nests last year, so they have re-built, this time clearly with the remains of an old string mop.
I have given up on the kaffir lime, since it produces neither fruit nor useable leaves, and isn't that ornamental either. Now thinking what I can replace it with. A different citrus, possibly.
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Date: 2022-02-24 11:57 am (UTC)I wonder if birds could use Pippin's shedded fur for nesting material? I brush and vacuum up an infinite supply.
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Date: 2022-02-25 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-24 01:17 pm (UTC)And I just love this picture of activity generally--thank you!
Over here, there's been a squirrel making a nest in the tree outside my study window. It's been great seeing him nibble small twigs and shove them into the crook in a tree. It was all very twiggy and pointy, and then the next day I looked, and it was all leafy! So obviously he (or maybe it's she who makes the nest; I don't know) had been lining it. Including (I see now as I lean back to get a better view) with milkweed seeds, which are very soft and fluffy.
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Date: 2022-02-25 08:01 am (UTC)