The only notable additions to our yard list came this week with a pair of long-tailed tits. (OH SHUT UP - no more jokes, please!!!!!). They've been flitting around in the trees, but don't come to the feeders.
The pheasants are still about - 3 males and 5 females, but there's a lot more feather ruffling, displaying (by both sexes) and chasing around so we think they're starting to think about territories, harems and SEX! Because they keep harems we started giving them eastern sounding names like Fatima and Farouk, but have given up on that. Now the males are called Fatty, Thinny and Darkie because of their relative sizes and the coloring of their feathers. We can't name the females because we haven't been able to tell them apart!
Fatty does a lot of posturing and walks around with his feathers fluffed up. This hasn't actually seemed to have any benefits where the females are concerned. Thinny has a lot of grey on his back as well as his wings. He seems to be the most successful in rounding up the ladies! Darkie is considerably darker than the other two because his chest is a purply brown, he has no grey on his back and just a few streaks of grey in his wings. There is no grey on the top of his head either, just a slightly lighter shade of green. I didn't realise there was so much variation, but I gather that many different varieties have been bred and imported into the U.K.
The female pheasants remind me of a group of "old gals" out on a spree. They wander up to a plant and spend a little time pecking the seeds off it, then they all seem to drift off together in one direction or another. Occasionally a squabble will burst out. There will be a ruffling of feathers and a bit of chasing about and then they all go back to pecking and drifting about the garden.
We still have the same crowd at the feeder - lots of coal, blue and great tits and a couple of nuthatches - with a few blackbirds and robins scratching about on the ground. We haven't seen the woodpecker for weeks inspite of keeping a steady supply of fat for him so I think he's off to find a less cold spot for the winter.
So this is enough of an update for now. I'll try to write again before Christmas.
Stay in touch, please ...... mailto:joanarnfield@gmail.com
