Feathered Friends No. 2

[Niao]

This is Patchy, another one of my many special feathered friends! He, like Jimmy the Jackdaw if you saw that post, also hopped back from a rather traumatic experience.

This time last year my partner came home to find him lying in the road outside our driveway. He was in a bad way. He picked him up but then turned round and saw a female standing in complete shock in our garden, so he called me, I took Patchy while he picked up the female. We couldn’t leave them there because of the cats.

Minutes later a man appeared, quite upset, and told us they had flown out in front of his car and gone into the windscreen.

We put them both in a warm ventilated box in a quiet room with the window opened so they could still hear their chums outside, we were confident the female, now named Lucky, would recover, but with poor Patchy it was looking very doubtful.

A while passed, with careful checks, and the female was moving around so we took the box outside, opened the lid and sure enough, out she hopped, in no hurry to fly away, she just stood looking at us for a while. All was fine, we watched her go off calmly. Poor Patchy was flat out with his wings stretched. We took him back in.

It seemed like ages and we’d all but given up when we heard movement. He was ok! We released him and he went to hide in a shrub where I watched through binoculars. The next day we had visits from both of them, it was lovely! They continued to visit until Billy, our Blackbird ‘in residence ‘ chased them off but they still managed to sneak past when he wasn’t looking! Still do and are, in fact, out there as I write, 2 of the 20 or so currently fighting to establish territories.

We’ve witnessed many incredible acts of endurance and amazing resilience shown despite horrendous injuries from our birds. They can have quite tough little lives, and to see some hobble around with a broken leg, or others, still battling on despite having been half plucked and mauled by the Hawk, can be quite humbling!

I simply adore all ‘my’ birdies, couldn’t be without them. They eat us out of house and home but they’re so very much worth it, providing me with hours upon hours of entertainment!

I haven’t been able to get out to actually go bird watching for a long time due to my health but my bedroom is like my very own hide, looking out to the bird tables and a small river where we can also see at times Heron, Kingfisher, Dipper and Grey Wagtail. Also our regular Mallards.

We have all the usual, Coal, Blue, Great and Longtail Tits, Robins, Thrush, Sparrows, Dunnocks, Blackcaps, Chaffinches, Goldcrests, Goldfinches, Bullfinch, Starlings, Collared Doves, Wood Pidgeons, and all the Corvids, en masse. Practically have our own Starling murmuration at times, the amount we have! In the Springtime we have a Common Gull pair who demand to be fed on my windowsill whenever they knock! And we have Sparrowhawk, with whom we have a very love/hate relationship with, given the fact, under any other circumstances , I ‘d be completely thrilled to watch any bird of prey, but when they’re devouring my ‘friends’, a few feet in front of me, not so at all!

They are all beautiful and have unique, funny little ‘personalities’ but I do have a special fondness and attachment to my Blackbirds. Right now we have about 20, some practicing their songs as I write, but this will change pretty soon when territories are re-established.

The Seasons for me are heralded by the comings and goings, and changing behaviours of the birds and I cannot wait for Spring to fully take its hold, as with it will bring yet more visitors and the yearly complete chaos at the bird tables, demandings at my window, and, of course, all the new arrivals. We have become known as a Creche and all the birds leave their babies off for the day! It will bring both heartache and joy, as we watch the fledglings grow up, learn to fend for themselves, have their little squabbles etc. ,but inevitably there will be sad times too, when some succumb to illness, break wings, legs or feet , or are taken by Hawky or Catty.

My feathered friends have helped me so much through lock downs and through many other tough times as well, and I, for one, think they are amazing!