This spring has been one of the driest in record, with no significant rainfall in the south for months. Bank holiday Monday was the first wet day we'd had in a while and as such I couldn't get out to take any photos. I decided to stay in and take some shots of birds on the feeders.
House Sparrow
At the moment my front garden and feeding station is inundated with these little guys, its not unusual for us to have 20+ in the garden at one time. Took this one as they were waiting on top of the feeding pole, looking a bit dishevelled.
This male House Sparrow wasn't very happy that the kids were hanging around on his feeder so kept chasing them off.
Me and a friend have been following the lives of a pair of Mute swans on our local ponds for a few years. This year the female laid from what we have heard 5 eggs, of which 2 were either stolen or were subject to predation. We aren't sure how true this is because we have only ever seen 3 eggs but it is quite likely that they did have more, this family was subject to egg theft a few years back when the whole clutch was stolen.
Anyway the eggs were laid around the end of March and the first one hatched on Friday 27/05/11, the second the next day and the 3rd was not long after.
Here's a photo from the Saturday morning when I went down at 6 am, after 2 hours of sitting in the cold the little one finally poked its head out.
On the Sunday evening I went down again and this time after an hour and half the female stood up and decided to take the cygnets out for (what we think is) their first swim. I managed to catch a short video of the moment.
