After a relentlessly dull and drizzly winter – unseasonally wet even for these notoriously showery islands – the sun finally poked through the low cloud and the mercury started to rise. It’s almost time for the annual garden nip and tuck and to call in the chimney sweep. Let’s hope it’s not a false dawn. Mother Nature can be a fickle mistress, and the old girl has been in a filthy mood of late.
Right on cue, flirty birds are feeling horny, pumping up the volume during the morning squawk. Light sleeper Liam was woken by a particularly lively gig. Curious to know what had ruffled his feathers, he took to his handy phone app to identify the culprits. It turned out to be a mixed choir of woodpigeons, jackdaws, moorhens, robins, redwings, and collared doves, with solos from a hooting tawny owl and a rat-tat-a-tatting woodpecker.
I, on the other hand, could sleep through a hurricane and didn’t hear the chirpy, chirpy, cheep cheep.
Cue the completely unrelated 1971 number 1 from the Scottish band Middle of the Road. Thanks for the memory.
Perking the Pansies 
Haha the things we called music back in the day. Seems ours have the same affliction with tails bobbing seductively. I’ve had Liam’s App on as well. The squawking has been impressive. Saw two toucans in a certain tree the birds love. There’s also a dove sitting on a stick nest on our roof. It’s her fav spot. She returns there every year.
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Toucans? I’m impressed 😀
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One time Lisa saw babies w heads so big they could barely stay upright.
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Blimey! 🙂
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The early chippers have started arriving here, too.
Where I am moved, we’re not allowed to have bird feeders, so most birds hang out where there’s food, of course. I miss them a lot since we don’t get the numbers of birds without the feeders. But owners here voted to keep feeders out because spilled seeds bring mice, rats, and then the snakes.
Instead, I will be planting some desert wildflowers that birds and butterflies like. And I may add a hummingbird feeder, which is allowed.
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That’s a shame but understandable. I only feed the birds over the winter when food is scarce. I’ve stopped now. They don’t need me anymore 😦
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In the desert, they need food year around, mostly spring through fall when the numbers are high.
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And daytime temperatures are at their highest, I guess. 🤔
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