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Writer's pictureCrone

Miscellany - birds and bees

Actually, there were also a lot of butterflies - brimstone, skippers, tortoiseshell and some wood something that I can't recall. I identified them with the help of Suzy and her butterfly sheet. Suzy is one of the volunteers. She is incredibly impressive - a hard worker with great knowledge who has qualified to ring birds.


All I do is harass crows.


Anyway, on this run, I saw this egg. Smaller than a chicken egg and more beige than they tend to be. I will not even attempt an ID. Though I do note that this is a remarkably boring egg in comparison with many I might have found. Only pigeons lay such bland eggs. And as it still seemed quite early, and pigeons lay all year round, I expect it was one of them.



Later I passed where an egg ought to be. I love this nest - it's not so clear from the picture but it has a roof - it's shaped like a basket with a very broad handle.

In the park I saw crow-people who may soon have eggs. Mr Fluffy was waiting and when I had left the food, Mrs Fluffy swooped in.


What was so lovely was that she sort of half flapped her wings and made a bleating call then stuck out her beak and Mr Fluffy somewhat grudgingly fed her. This happened twice. I got out my phone in time to see Mr Fluffy walk off to bury a peanut. Oh well.

Mrs Fluffy seemed just as disappointed. She flew off and I saw her disappear over the houses across the street. Then, in my peripheral vision, I saw a crow return and land in this nest.

Now, crows try to mask their nest from you and don't like to be seen flying in so I think she was deceiving me. Fair enough. And I do think it was her because this tree is one in which I often see them perching - it is most definitely their territory and other crows are chased away if they get within four trees of this one.


Oh and the bees - various different types I would classify as of the genus bumble. Plus a bee-looking thing with an incredibly long proboscis. This seemed to hover in places - concentrating - before flitting off. Claire's eyes shone when I told her about this (we were inspecting a bee corpse during volunteering at Collyweston). She said it was a bee-fly and that she loves them.

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maplekey4
29 abr 2022

Oh this is a good bird and bee report. That's neat about Mr Fluffy feeding Mrs F and also those bee-flies. I wonder if the proboscis sticks out all the time? I did know that flies can help pollinate flowers... Those are pretty pics of eggs (at the link). I wonder why a lot of them are blue.

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maplekey4
01 may 2022
Contestando a

Yes, probably. At the link, there's a good photo and they say that a "long prob." is characteristic.

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