The Hunchback of Notre Jardin

With the coming of two beautiful Jackdaw fledglings, quite some time ago, I started to notice some strange behaviour yet could not pinpoint what it was exactly. Until recently after observing for a few more days.
With the young ones becoming bolder by the day, and more often than not, would come and feed on their own, with the parents and the rest of their family elsewhere or perhaps on the roof of the house. When feeding independently from mum, dad or aunties and uncles {and Granddad with the big hairdo, to show his patriarch status of this family of 12 or more.} the Juvenile Jackdaws would often behave as boisterous Jackdaws do, more often than not, their crop with everything they can possibly discover around the feeding area.

As soon as an adult arrives, the youngster will stoop, almost doing a curtsy while bowing to the elder. As long as the elder is on the wall with junior, he will keep up this hunched stand, and slowly start to eat what he has assembled in his crop. Any spills are eaten by older Jackdaw. I’m not sure if this spill is intentionally or not. Pecks at junior are a common sight too. Mostly resulting in junior jumping up high before landing a good distance away from Elder. Still, junior will keep his hunched stance toward the Elder, with head bend low.

It is a pity we do not get to see junior as he flies off towards an uncertain future, searching for a new land, an territory he will at last be able to call his own, and where he can stand up to others, stretch his neck and start his own long line of family and will start his own row of juniors..

Left is other, older Juvenile JackdawAnd when nobody is looking, Junior tries out another attitude,

The Hardship of A Coastal Birder in Summer!

The title sounds like a total contradiction, yet I wish it wasn’t. And although I was complaining perhaps how difficult it was to get out during winter, I always kept looking forward to summer, in the hope I’d have less problems in finding a little window in the weather where weather and winds would be favourable to the local conditions, and to my pain giving me the opportunity to put my wheels into, and pack my, gear, for a couple hours on the road. Living at the coast of SW Eire, this means that finding a gap of dry weather, a Light to Moderate breeze, and a reasonable temperature is often hard to find in winter, even though I do not mind cold weather so much.

Since I got my camera in December, I’ve been more on the road I feel during the winter and spring than I have in this summer. In spring I was able to get out on the road either every day or every other day during the first week of May.
Of course it is not only the weather which plays its part, the tides have to be to my liking too. I prefer to get on the road about midway High and Low, which then gives me an hour to get on the road to the little strand where I used to walk our dog, Whitey, a mix between English and Irish Sheepdog; an Irish Collie with a mass of hair.

On the way to this little spot, I will most likely take a detour via the little back road, which is one of the Wildflower hotspots for me, other than inaccessible fields, which I can just glimpse via gaps in the hedgerows. Along the sides of this little road, grow Blue Bells, Ragged Robins, Honeysuckle, Wild Garlic, Little Robins, and many other beauties. Insects you find here too, of course; these flowers all have their preferred pollinators, and Bees, Wasps and Flies buzz around from side to side, and hovering above the sea of alluring colours, smells and shapes. Getting a picture of one, sitting still long enough is another one of those challenges which nature photography brings with it. More often than not it is a question of luck, rather than anything else. Well in my case anyway. I often wish I had a nice macro lens for better detailed shots of these little creatures though. Same with photos of my dear {Micro} Moths. My Lumix does do good pictures but as in the case with most beginners of digital photography, you start wishing for More & Better Shots on those subjects which you favour!

I’m only just back from the shop down in the village, and on my way back along the hedgerows of the back road I stopped suddenly when I noticed some little flowers peeking through. I was unable to discover if they were actually wild ones, or if these had been growing in the garden behind the hedgerow. Still I took their pictures so I can try and look for an ID later.
The Brambles are already underway in the forming of their berries, whose progress is perhaps closely monitored by the House Sparrows living in the dense vegetation of the hedgerow.
The relative new houses which were built behind the hedgerow on a steep slope, have managed to do so while keeping most of these hedgerows intact, a great contribution to the local wildlife. In contrast, Cork County Council destroyed all hedgerows before building the houses on the other site of the road!

Sparrow Fluffers in the Garden,Jackdaw, Head of the Family,Swallow above the backroadJuvenile Great TitChaffinch femaleA bit of colour, Dandelion Berries for the birds Wild Greater Bird'sfoot in the garden