Happy Holidays!
Apologies for this being so brief; it feels like my feet haven’t touched the ground since October. It hasn’t been so lively around here though – stories and pictures are backed up just like holiday traffic, and there is no chance to share even one – I have to be on a train in under an hour’s time. But I had to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday, may you and your loved ones be safe and well. I know some of you have had bad times recently or are still going through them, so I wish that especially for you.
With Love,
Bird xxx
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Merry Christmas and happy holiday back to you…let’s hope you have at least a minute or two of peace, as well…
Hi Dr Jay! It wasn’t that peaceful but there was a lot of fun… I’m working on the peaceful right now though, or do I mean tedious? Filing and data imput for my tax return is not exciting that’s for sure
Hope your new year will be a good one – in whatever way you interpret the word
Happy holidays, hon! My best to you & yours for 2010!
Right back to you too, Lana! xxx
Here’s hoping you have slowed down a little now…Happy holidays, I hope you have a good time ~ chrissy X
Chrissy, it certainly has slowed down now thank goodness, and I did have a really good time – I guess I’m back to reality now though! xx
Re- Workday on the Marshes. The Blackbird’s nest is a Song Thrush’s. Hope you don’t mind me mentioning this. Came across your site while browsing due to being snowed in, lovely stuff, well done.
Hello Onion Field, thanks for stopping by, and no, I don’t mind a bit, it’s always good to compare notes! I’m still leaning toward it being a blackbird nest as the eggs have a more uniform speckle to them which the picture does not get across. But I’ve seen more blackbird nests close up than song thrushes so I could easily be wrong – they are very similar!
Hello Bird Heres how you tell.Both the Blackbird and the Thrush start their nests with a layer of grass,rootlets etc. Then they add a layer of damp mud which is pressed into shape.The Blackbird then adds a lining of soft grasses to finish the job, but the Song Thrush does not. So even if there are no eggs in the nest, you can always tell which bird it belongs to. The Thrush’s eggs are pale sky blue in colour,with small well defined spots of black and dark brown.The Blackbird’s eggs have a pale green background, mottled with light brown and reddish brown spots. I spent my childhood,just after the war, without the benefit of TV, X-boxes etc. and also without the paranoia which kids have to suffer today. The result was that we spent all our time birds-nesting, fishing, falling into streams and fighting life threatening diseases! All this set me up for a lifetimes interest in natural history,for which I am truly thankful. Hope this is helpful.(the first bit I mean, not the geriatric ramble!)
Hello Onion Field, and thanks for coming back with the information! The eggs looked so similar to Blackbird eggs I have seen, that was what had me thinking it was a blackbird nest. (There were others there who also thought it was a blackbirds nest so we all convinced each other I think) But your description of a song thrushes nest and how it is made is a perfect description of what we saw that day. We’ve had blackbirds nesting on our kitchen window ledge a couple of times so I know that the nest is lined exactly as you say, I had it in the back of my mind that the Tottenham Marshes nest looked oddly unfinished but I could never have put my finger on why that was.
I grew up in the 1970′s and even back then children had a lot more freedom and inclination to go out and discover things, I was particularly attracted to ponds
Never climbed trees much myself as I was scared of heights! My mum was considered over protective for the time but I still managed to slip the leash and go out and have plenty of adventures. And like you it gave me a love of the natural world that only got stronger. Thank you so much for reading and commenting here, I feel like I really learned something today!