1995-2008

Allah took my darling Cubbie back in Ramadan.

I miss you so much Cubbie. Inshallah we shall fly together in Jannah.

There was a male sparrowhawk here on Tuesday! I am going to reserve my mini heart attack in case of a return! Luckily, it didn’t catch anything. It was quite deja vu of the kestrel, really!

The babies died in the night. None survived.

I think the tubbies have abandoned their nest.

In the last two days I haven’t seen them make even one visit to the nest. I know this doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t, but considering I usually see them visit several times a day, this is very very bad news. I can hear their plaintive cries for food, yet no one comes. And they must be close to fledging too, because they are making the same begging noises as the fledglings, not the typical baby bird ‘cheep cheep’ anymore. Mr Tubbie pretty much left all the hard work to his mate these last few days, though I did see him two days ago going to the nest. Mrs Tubbie has been a devoted mother up until two days ago… I have not seen her since. I know that some upstart male has been challenging Mr Tubbie for the territory, because I heard the two of them having a song showdown a few days ago. But Mrs Tubbie seemed to ignore the spat and carried on attending to her nestlings as usual. But now they are both gone.

Yet we still have two great tits (plus one of Mr Tubbie’s juveniles) visiting the feeders. They usually take about 3 worms at a go, drop two on the floor, then pick up another two from the feeder, but they don’t take them to the pipe. They just fly over the roof somewhere else, or eat the worms themselves, so they can’t be my tubbies. I saw a male on the fence today, he didn’t seem so scared of me, so I held up the cup of worms to him, but he didn’t take them, he flew away, so he can’t be my tubbie at all Would my tubbies really just leave their babies to die because another male wants the territory? The male blackbirds are always fighting, yet Mabel continued to look after her fledglings as usual.

I don’t understand. I can hear those poor nestlings crying whenever I go outside or open the window and it’s breaking my heart. I think it might be a mercy for the magpie to come and put them out of the misery, but they are in a pipe, no one can get in, I can’t even get them out. If only my parents let me put up the nestbox, they might have nested in there, and if the parents had abandoned them, I could have taken them in and at least tried to raise them myself. Now it looks like they are all destined to starve to death, my poor little babies

That’s a vid of Mr Tubbie going into his nest. His first batch of babies are still here and I got two of them to take worms from me. However, I wouldn’t consider them properly tamed.

Anyways, I am very worried. That video is from yesterday, but I have not seen Mr Tubbie at all today. I heard a great tit singing, and as Mrs Tubbie was in our garden, I can only assume the singing bird was Mr Tubbie. But I don’t know for sure. What’s worrying me most is that right now I can hear the nestlings in the pipe screaming for food, but no one is coming. Mrs Tubbie was feeding them this afternoon, but now, there is no sign of her either. What’s going on?

Absence of evidence doesn’t mean evidence of absence. The kestrel is unfortunately still in the area. Having said that, I don’t think it’s after any of my birds. The other day the little uns started screaming again, then all stayed still. I looked up and saw a screaming seagull flying away… or chasing something. Nothing strange about that. But looking with the binoculars at the bird flying away from it… well it was very definitely raptor shaped, so I’m guessing it was Kes. But it was high up and not directly over my street, so perhaps her preferred hunting grounds are elsewhere.

Anyway, I was right about Mr Tubbie, he has got another brood and I know where his nest site is too. He’s been going in and out of the broken pipe against the neighbours’ wall. A couple of days ago I saw him taking something green in - a caterpillar? - and now he is taking mealworms up too, and Mrs Tubbie as well. So that’s probably where they have their brood. Mr Tubbie has been particularly intolerant of his babies, he is always scaring them away and even almost fighting them. I tamed one baby, Baby Tubbie, and s/he takes worms from my hand like Daddy! It’s been how long - 2 weeks - since they fledged and they are STILL demanding food from their parents! What lazy slobs! No wonder Mr Tubbie is chasing them away! 4 to 6 days, the book says! Huh!

I’ve trained the baby tubbies to use the Seed Saver (i.e. I put the worms in there and eventually - stupid things - they figured out how to use it). No surprise, the greenfinches and goldfinches no longer visit, because, like the sparrows, they only know how to use the JS2. I HAD to take that down, not because of the rain, but because the finches get through a kilo of sunflower hearts in a week (half of it just got spilt) and I can’t afford to keep them fed at that rate. The seed saver gets emptied at a much more leisurely rate, so now I know how it got its name!

Eeek! Two new visitors since my last update. One good, the other, not good at all!!

Well, we’ve had our first collared dove visit ever, last week, but it only came that one day. A few days prior to that, I heard one a few streets down singing, so the one that visited us was not such a surprise!

The second surprise visit: a kestrel.

Yes, a kestrel. It was all brown, so it was a female. Also, it looked quite a bit bigger than the male one I saw at the bazaar a few years ago. Anyway, it was having a go at my little uns, and you should have heard them screaming! I had just scared that blasted cat away, and returned to the top floor to scout in case that damn cat tried returning, and instead I was greeted by a strange brown bird swooping down onto my kitchen roof. Cue alarm screams and rapid retreats from the tubbies and blackbirds, and screams of ‘Go away, go away!’ from me as I dashed downstairs to the garden!!! I really don’t know who was more scared, me or the little uns! Anyway, that was my first visit from a raptor and, I hope, my last. I have to admit the kestrel was beautiful, but I don’t want any casualties here, no thanks! It’s been 2 days since I saw the kestrel, and I haven’t seen any sign of it again - and all my birds are still accounted for - so maybe it was just passing through, but I’m still going to be on my guard.

In other news, my firethorn flowers have nearly all opened, and seem to be more popular than they were the last two years. Also, Mr Chaffinch is having a pretty violent fight with another bird (another male chaffinch??!?!?). The baby blackbirds are independent now, but they always hang around together, sometimes with Mabel Blackbird. They’re quite tame too, not fleeing immediately when they see me, and even let me throw breadcrumbs to them, which they take, most of the time. The baby tubbies should be independent by now, however, Mr Tubbie is as harassed as ever. I know for a fact they can feed themselves, but they still always pester Daddy to feed them instead! Lazy so-and-sos!!!

Mabel has 2 fledgelings, so cute! They are quite tame as well. Everyone seems to be quite tame these days! Mr Tubbie’s babies are learning to forage now. One of them is so tame, I was actually able to stroke its wings and tail yesterday, it’s so soft!! Today it even allowed me to press my finger against its belly, like you do with budgies to make them sit on your finger. And it did put one foot on my finger, it didn’t mind at all!! It must be from watching Daddy Tubbie take worms from me. We’ve been having a bit of aggro from the magpies, but they haven’t attacked any of our birds.

Our old Tom and Mabel are loath to give up their territory. I’ve seen them being chased out of our garden (although I don’t know which is which) on more than one occasion. That’s all for today.

Doh! Forgot to mention that Tubbie’s babies actually fledged about 3 or 4 days before I wrote the last post!! I must have been very late with the worms! At first I thought there were only 1 or 2 babies, but I’ve managed to get a look at them in our garden and I think there’s about 5, same as last year.

I’ve been trying to get some cute poses from Mr Tubbie, but it would help if I had a camera that could actually danged FOCUS!!!!

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Aww!! The breeding season is well and truly upon us. I got my worms (2 days late, because no one answered the door first time Luckily most of the wormies were still alive) and I ascertained for certain that my Mr Tubbie is indeed the same Mr Tubbie from last year. As soon as I took the worms out to the garden (maybe he recognised my shrieks everytime I touched a worm) he started to hop about around me. Well, you finally decided to get them, did you? he admonished. You sure do take your sweet time don’t you? I have a nestful of screaming babies in there, but it would seem you’d rather occupy your time digging worms for the blackbirds.

Having finished his lecture, he grabbed a worm and flew off. His nest isn’t on our street this year. Last year it was easy, just a few houses down from mine (south-facing, as I think I said last year). This year his nest is a few streets down, but it’s all good. If I take too long getting the worms, he tells me off, then flies into the shed to get them himself. Alas, he doesn’t know how to open boxes. Here are some pics of my lil luvvie.

Yup, he’s as hand tame as ever

Nice shot of his wings

Ouch!

And here’s another video. Déjà vu of last year or what?

Tom Blackbird got beaten in a fight. A week or two ago, there were two of them at it like knives on the fence. Then a few days ago, I saw two males having a bit of argy-bargy further down the street. Then a Mabel went in to join the fray… and then another decided to go see what the fuss was all about. I *think* our Tom lost the fight, because the one that comes now ignores the blackbird feeder completely, which is something the original Tom and Mabel never did. Also, this new male looks more dark brown than black. However, lately he has become rather tame, I had the two of them flying onto the neighbours’ fence a few days ago. They looked at Tubbie taking the worms from me, but decided maybe it’s not for them, and flew off. They weren’t really that scared of me.

Other birds are seeing Mr Tubbie follow me around like a lovesick teenager and are realising I’m not such a threat after all. The downside to this is that the starlings and the woodpigeons are among the observers. Not good. Starlings still love sitting on my feeder, fouling it, then flying away cackling. Woodpigeons, I’m not too happy about them because they have no sense of danger and you know what that blasted cat is (still alive, unfortunately).

Mr Sparrow has figured out how to use the worm feeder. He is a bit of a trouble-maker at all accounts. He does not know how to queue. The tubbies always wait for their turn, but if Mr Sparry gets impatient, he’ll just snatch the worm from a tubbie’s mouth. It gives me great pleasure to see Mr Tubbie can give as good as he gets. Mr Sparrow has never succcessfully taken a worm that way!

Now I don’t know if Mr Sparrow has babies. It seems to me he takes the worm onto the kitchen roof, eats it, then comes back for more. But I *do* vaguely remember them doing that two years ago, I thought they were eating them themselves, but a few weeks later a flock of juveniles emerged. So perhaps he isn’t scoffing the lot himself. We’ll see. I’m trying to hand-tame him, he is venturing closer to me, after seeing Mr Tubbie has no fear of me whatsoever (I mean, come on, the second I’m out the door he’ll follow me around and churr his head off). I’m not sure if Mr Sparry will be that bold, but I’ll have a go anyway, maybe if I ration the worms, ie the only way they can get it is if they take it from me, it might work.

PS. Missis Tubbie is still terrified of me.