Bird, wildlife and flower log, 7-13 April 2014

Hello, firstly an apology as still no photos this week, although I am working on it! Things have really taken off in the garden, there are so many flowers and they look amazing. The garden is full of forget-me-nots which I adore. Hence the names for my other two blogs.

Actually instead of a photo I am sharing a collage scrapbook page, which I created from nine other scrapbook pages of the wildlife in the garden. I created it for a Daisytrail Alpha Word Challenge, the page had to include the word Wildlife. I created the background paper, the template and the alpha myself in Craft Artist.

Wildlife Garden

There won't be such a good display of tulips this year as the squirrels have been nibbling the bulbs. I will need to get some more in the autumn to plant. Talking about squirrels, one got caught tucking into one of the flowers off the camellia bush (it's not the first time I've seen this, they also like the flower buds too.) Of course they don't eat a whole flower or bud, one bite and then off to pick another one! Honestly I don't mind when it is the dandelion leaves, but I do object to the flowers...

After the goings on a couple of weeks back between two pigeons I'm expecting to see a young one or two in the near future! There was a little bit of blue tit interest in one of the nest boxes, but as I've not seen anything recently I guess it must have gone elsewhere :( Although some of the blue tits have been raiding the baskets on the garage again for nesting material, so they can't be too far away.

Unfortunately I saw a female chaffinch with a damaged wing the other week. She could still fly, but not very well and stayed in the garden that day. I've not seen her since but yesterday whilst in the garden I found a dead bird and I think it is a female chaffinch. I just hope it didn't damage itself on the patio doors. The birds often fly into them and this has killed several small birds in the past, which is really sad.

The blackbirds have all been stocking up on the meal worms we put out and then flying off. So I can only assume they have had their first brood. There is a resident Mr Black in the back garden and a different one in the front. So I am looking forward to seeing lots of young ones in the garden soon.

I'm sure that wasn't everything over the last three weeks, but as the post is already quite long I shall leave it at that for now.

Birds	Wildlife and Insects	Flowers
Great spotted woodpecker - female	Grey squirrels	Camellia
Chaffinch - male, female	Brimstone yellow butterfly	Yellow flowered shrub
Greenfinch - male, female	Peacock butterfly	Pulmonaria (Lungwort)
Blue tit - adult	Large white butterfly	Heather
Great tit - adult	Pond Skaters	Primrose
Coal tit	Bee-fly	Muscari
Siskin - male, female	Bumblebee	Forsythia
Robin - adult		Clematis (hardy variety)
Magpie - adult		Viburnum tinus (I think)
Crow - adult		Hellebore (green flower)
Woodpigeon - adult, juvenile		Forget-me-not
Collared dove - adult		Pansy
Nuthatch		Dandelion
Blackbird - male, female		Aubrieta
Goldfinch		Tulip
Dunnock		Viola
Wren		Lilac
Jay		Yellow flowered shrub