Daily Larry & friends

Friday, December 30, 2011

May - Wildlife Delights 2011

May 2011

2nd May

Cuckoo flower

Attention Larry Legs!

3rd May

Germander speedwell

4th May

Larry Legs

6th May

Hover love

Leaf beetle

Common red damselflies

7th May

Female orange tip - soon after eaten by a house sparrow :(

16th May

Elgar

18th May

Yellow rattle

Meadow Clary plus cuckoo spit:

19th May

Baby grasshopper

19th May

Hover fly - Narcissus-fly

Harlequin ladybird

First sighting of baby blackbird - collective name of Godzilla

22nd May

First male common blue of the year, on my Dad's Birthday!

23rd May

Foxglove

Sheep sorrel

24th May

Froghopper

Peacock

Common blue damselfly

Ox eye daisy

Large white butterfly

25th May

Male common blue

25th May

Bee on centura

Rainbow

26th May

Loopy Lou

28th May

Foxglove & bee

Larry Legs

29th May

Fledged blue tit

April - Wildlife Delights 2011

April 2011

6th April:

Holly blue

9th April

Orange tip

21st April

1st appearance of Larry Legs

And Elgar:

22nd April

Ribwort plantain first flower

23rd April

Wild garlic/Ramson

Male orange tip

25th April

Broad bodied chaser (female)

28th April

14 spot ladybird

30th April

Fruit fly

March - Wildlife Delights 2011

This post contains the many glorious wildlife that visited & lived in my garden this year:

5th March

Male bullfinch

17th March

Female blackbird nest building:

27th March:

Lady Love!

29th March

Surprise visiter - male brambling

Next post - April!

Little Larry Fledged 17th July 2011

Saturday, April 9, 2011

A poem I wrote a few years back:

There's a hush in my ears
my unsteady breathing show my fears
I'm all buckled & tightly pressed
I flick my ears back & forth in distress.

It's almost the start so I have to get ready
Keep my hooves firm, keep my posture steady
I look around & see others like me
all stressed, nervous & very unhappy.

I trot up to the line & close my eyes
think of warm sun & cloudless blue skies
Then something loud shouts in my ear
a nudge in my ribs & my eyes smart with tears

And then I'm hurtling, tripping, running
to negotiate this mass takes all my cunning
the noise, the bangs, the grunts
before I know it I'm out in front!

Minutes pass & the first jump I clear
but others fall down, I can't see, only hear
Hedge after hedge I smash over & through
heaving sweating bodies are my only view

The pace suddenly quickens
I can't keep up I feel beaten
the crashes, the cries, the pounding of the ground
I'm terrified & my heart beats fast to the sound

I'm tiring, yet I'm still being whipped
pull me over, please pull me up quick
the end is nearing, my end is coming
yet you're forcing me to keep on running

I make the finish but I'm done
none of this was great, none of this was fun
Then there's silence & a great white light
I fall on my back, finished & there ends my plight.

In memory to the horse 'Hear the Echo' who collapsed & died this afternoon after racing in the Grand National. RIP x March 2009

***** Two horses lost their lives today at this years Grand National - my poem still says it all I think.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Birds, Birds & More Brilliant Birds!

So it's been Christmas & we've had snow! Now the snow has gone & the birds not so numerous! Here are a selection of birds I have seen in my garden the last month - there are many more I've missed, just need some better photos of them!

Coal Tit

Starling

Blue tit

Male House Sparrow

Nuthatch

Female Chaffinch

Goldfinches Galoroe

Male Bullfinch with Great Tit

Female Bullfinch

Brambling

Male Blackbird - called Larry

Pied Wagtail

Great Tit

Robin

Collard Doves

Pair of House Sparrows

Song Thursh

Redwing


Male Chaffinch

Also had greenfinches, long tailed tits, dunnocks, wrens, goldcrests & even a buzzard came to say hello - not to mention the rooks & jackdaws & the odd ravens flying over!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Not so Daily it Seems!

I started this blog knowing that with the longer darker nights I'll be at a loss, so I'd have time to do this blog - doesn't seem that way!

I'm off to Cornwall again tomorrow for a mini break - this time West looe. I really can't wait & stuff the weather, I just want to enjoy myself!

Here's a few photos:

House Sparrow in the garden

Ink caps

Berries for a passing waxwing flock

Another house sparrow feet exposed!

Goldfinch eating dandelion seeds

Wildflower seeds before I scattered them

The best moss I've ever found on a woodland walk

Wish I knew more about fungi

And lichen!

This time is the best for sunsets, from golden

To bright pink amongst royal blue!

Robin's aren't just for Christmas (2011)

Just now, it seems I’ve known them for ever. The dearest, sweetest - and I suppose, red-est - friends I’ve ever had. Two robins, one called Larry Legs and the other (one of his fledglings), Little Larry. Although as I write this, he’s not so little anymore.

It was in April, in fact, that I first noticed a very distinctive, elegant bird, gazing at me from out of the hawthorn. A robin unmistakably. But not just any old robin. It was his legs. Long and thin like stilts. Back straight as a Royal.

Continued...

I’d just started to feed the garden birds live mealworms - easy when you get used to it - to help them feed their young. At first they stayed away, uncertain of what was on offer. ‘That’s no worm,’ I heard them tweet. So I drowned a few and left them on the bird table (live ones would have crawled off).

And that seemed to work - except for the bird I’d seen in the hawthorn. He was having none of it. I could see the table from out of my study window, and there was the robin staring straight back at me. Then he started to have a tantrum. I stood mesmerised.

He picked up a dead worm, stamped his feet, then threw it back on the table. Not just once, but repeatedly. This bird was angry. And he was telling me in no uncertain terms. ‘I want live - these things are dead!’

Continued...

And that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I sped outside, placed a bowl of live worms on the granite mushroom - a proper, authentic one - then sat on the bench and waited. He came immediately. The small robin on stilts. He gobbled up a few and then took a couple more away. Within minutes he was back. I’d won his appetite but, as yet, not his heart.

Now I’m one those people who can’t help naming some of the wild creatures who come in regularly to the garden. I have, for example, Mr. & Mrs. Lupin the hedgehogs, Jeremy the bank vole and Palmer (after Samuel) the barn owl.

But what was I to call this amazing robin? Then I remembered the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band (how strange the mind is). One of them was called Larry Legs. Perfect.

Continued...

Larry (with Mrs. Larry) was clearly raising a family. He started coming to me every day. I’d put out food for all the other birds. But Larry just wanted complete, personal attention. He’d stand upright on the bench, flap his wings as if begging, and then follow me into the garage where he knew I kept the worms. He’d perch on the dustbin lid, watching me open the box. Once the worms were on the ground (his own little patch) Larry would whizz down, pack them in his beak, and then fly off like a little red arrow to feed the scrum of gaping mouths in the nest.

I photographed Larry with a passion. And he took to modelling almost as much as to worms. I never encouraged him to feed from my hand, but one day he had no choice. He was surrounded by dozens of demanding house sparrows and tut-tutting, scolding blackbirds - notably Mr. & Mrs. Elgar and their siblings, the Godzillas (but that’s another story).

So, being Larry, he simply jumped the queue. He flew straight onto my hand where I’d quickly placed a few worms.

And then came the moment. I suppose it’s the sudden realization that you’re in love and that you’re loved in return.

Continued...

Instead of taking one of the wriggling victims on my hand immediately, Larry paused. He looked straight into my eyes and held them for several seconds. It said everything. A precious moment in time. This was trust, respect, an understanding between both of us. ‘I will always look after you Larry Legs,’ I said. And he knew it.

Late in July, Larry appeared with two fledglings. (I never did locate the nest but I knew it was somewhere close to the front garden.) A few days later, while dad sat high up on a branch singing - as dads do - I stood watching the children. One of them hopped to the front, and I began to take his picture. He let me get closer and closer. I switched over to a macro lens. And suddenly I was inches from his beak. The shots were amazing.

Continued...

The events which unfolded from hereon have, I suppose, taken over much of my life. For this was the start of Little Larry. Not only a chip off the old block. But I have to think, a bird simply from somewhere else. Numinous, more intelligent than any of us. He knows something we don’t know. And that’s all I know. Except that I’m crazy about Little Larry.

I’ve watched this little bird practically every day, photographing his transformation from a speckled brown fledgling into a brand new robin with a smart grey school cap and red blazer.

Throughout Little Larry’s development, Larry Legs watched over him - his offspring following him around and copying all of his habits. He would hop into the garage after him and stand at my feet as if begging too.