Song for Jasmine

This is my newest friend, a pigeon I call ‘Rover’. Why do I call him that? Because of the way we met.

Dweezeljazz and I go for a walk most mornings. About a week ago, we met Rover. We’d not been walking long, and had only gone about 200 metres, when a pigeon came flying out of nowhere, right past my face, and landed on the ground at our feet. He didn’t seem to be fussed by suddenly being so close to two humans, so we exchanged pleasantries, and went on our way.

He started to follow us. I thought it was just a coincidence, but then he flew to catch up, landing just behind us, and walking determinedly in our direction. This happened a couple of times until we got the message, he wanted to be with us.

Why he chose to follow us, we don’t know, but we figured there must be something not right for that to happen. So we turned round and headed back home, to see if Rover would follow us. He did! He kept pace with us back along the road, into our car park, past two cats that were not sure what to make of it all, and onto our terrace. I felt like I’d just taken a dog for a walk, so I decided to call him Rover.

Rover stayed for some time, happy to be near us and avail himself of some of the birdseed we put out in the mornings. When we came indoors to leave him in peace, he made a point of looking up to see if we were still there every few minutes, as you can see in the photos.

We could see that Rover had a small injury on his right foot, and what looked like a bump on the head. He also seems to be very young, many of his feathers are not fully developed yet.

I guess he’s recently fledged and finding his way in the world, and has had a near-miss of some sort. Why he should turn to us for help I do not know, maybe word has gotten round that birds are welcome in our garden.

Rover made himself at home, even settling down on the ground to sleep right next to us. Eventually, he decided to move on, and flew away. We wondered if we’d see him again, and sure enough, he came back that evening.

He’s become a regular visitor now, morning and evening. A couple of days ago we met him on the street again, when he tried to land on my hat as we were returning from our walk. I think he likes us.

He shows no fear of us, though he is still wary of sudden movements and noises. He is quite happy to stay on the terrace while I put out fresh seed for him if there’s none there when he arrives.

A few days ago he even flew in through the open terrace doors, landed on the coffee table, and proceeded to make himself at home! You can see him here, perched on a painting on top of an easel, calmly looking at me standing right next to him (sorry for the grainy photo, the light was dim and we didn’t want to turn on more light in case it scared him).

He proceeded to investigate much of the living room, flying from one place to another. We had some difficulty persuading him to leave, I’m sure he would have happily spent the night if we’d let him. Eventually we coaxed him outside, where, after a decent meal, he flew off into the trees.

He’s been back since, and I hope he continues to visit. I don’t want him to become tame, that wouldn’t be fair to him, but I do want him to know that he’s safe and welcome here, and that we’re happy to see him.

Pigeons have something of a bad reputation, but once you’ve met one in person, you realise that they’re every bit as pretty and elegant as other birds.

Every morning I open the shutters and take a look at what the world has to offer for the day. We have a good view of the Jura, and often have beautiful sunrises or sunsets. Early in the morning, before people are up and about much, there’s also a good chance of spotting some interesting wildlife.

I’ve seen squirrels in the trees, and foxes nearby, especially in winter. We saw a weasel at the edge of our car-park just a week or so ago, that was a first. We also get to see a large variety of birds throughout the day, the magpies are especially bold early in the morning.

Just occasionally, off in the distance, we’ll see a deer making his or her way slowly back up the hill, leaving us humans to our noise and bustle. We don’t often see them, and they don’t tend to stay long.

This fellow, however, has become something of a regular. He’s been here several mornings of the last two weeks, ambling around slowly in the bushes right next to our terrace. He’s nowhere near as shy as other deer, and doesn’t run away at the sight of people. He takes his time, wandering back to the trees and away into the forest as if he owns the place.

Maybe he does.

I know of a farm where they don’t feed the animals. They even allow predators to roam freely, taking up to one fifth of their stock. And they’re proud of it.

That sounds pretty awful, but it’s not, it’s actually very good news. You can hear all about it in this video of a talk by Dan Barber. Dan is a New York chef who is quite outspoken in his views on the way we produce food today. He’s also a nice guy, which comes across clearly in the video. If you’d rather read a transcript, here it is.

The farm Dan talks about is Veta la Palma. It’s a fish-farm on the Guadalquivir river, in Spain. It produces 1,200 tonnes of sea bass, bream, red mullet and shrimp each year. Miguel Medialdea, the farm’s biologist, explains that they don’t need to feed their fish because of the way the farm is set up.

Miguel himself says that he is not an expert on fish, but he is an expert on relationships. By working with nature to build a sustainable ecosystem, instead of working against it to maximise profit, Veta la Palma produces fish in a way that also benefits the wildlife of the region.

In fact, their farm is one of the most important private estates for bird life in Europe. Before the farm, there were only 50 bird species there, now they count 250 species. This includes flamingos that commute 150 miles daily from their nesting sites to feed there, following the A92 highway.

If that’s not a recommendation for the quality of the fish, I don’t know what is!

Our terrace is inspected every night by the local night watch. They go over every inch of the grounds, looking for intruders that shouldn’t be there. They’re quiet and unobtrusive, doing their work efficiently and without supervision.

They first appeared a couple of months ago, not long after the last snows melted here. We first found evidence of them in the droppings they left behind. When it comes to animal droppings, I don’t know – much, but a few minutes with google confirmed that these were likely the work of those cutest of creatures, the hedhehog.

Sure enough, it turns out that we have not one, but two (at least!) that come round for a nightly visit. Around 10pm each evening they squeeze under the garden gate, help themselves to a meal (breakfast?) of peanuts and sunflower seeds, then set off on their rounds.

(These photos are rather poor quality because they were taken without flash, so they are several-second exposures. I don’t like to use flash on animals, especially nocturnal ones.)

When we realised who it was that was visiting us at night we started putting out more nuts for them, instead of just letting them have the leftovers from the birds. After all, the birds don’t leave much! At first we left peanuts in their shells. The hedgehogs made short work of them but also left something of a mess, with bits of shell everywhere. After looking around the internet for information on how to feed hedgehogs, I found very little that talked about peanuts. So I contacted the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, to ask their advice.

Fay Vass promptly replied, telling me that unsalted peanuts are fine, but that they should be chopped or crushed, as whole or half-nuts can get stuck in the roof of their mouths. Thanks for the advice, Fay, they now have a diet of chopped nuts and sunflower seeds to start their evening.

You might think that the British Hedgehog Preservation Society is a small group, tucked away in some quiet place in the English countryside. Small they may be, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking on McDonalds over their hedgehog-unfriendly packaging, successfully persuading them to redesign it so hedgehogs can’t get stuck in it. Good for them!

So now, thanks to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, our local night patrol is well and safely fed. They eat for 15-20 minutes, then they’re off on their rounds, keeping our terrace slug-free.

And the best thing of all is that they work for peanuts!

Spring almost came to the Pays de Gex recently, and our morning walks were more pleasant for a while. It’s cold again now, but for a few days it was even warm enough to stop and take a few photos, here’s a selection for you.

The most unusual thing we’ve found recently has to be this lower jawbone, presumably of a deer. It was lying right in the middle of the snow-covered path, with no clue of how it got there. It must be rather old, I guess, it looks like it’s been around for a while.

There are a lot of deer around here, so I guess it’s not surprising to come across a bone or two from time to time, but this is the first for us. Some people are luck enough to find the occasional antler instead of a jaw, but I guess we have to start somewhere.

Then there’s this beautifully-carved fallen branch, with all these intricate markings in the wood where the bark has been stripped away. I would have guessed that this was beetle-damage from that alone, but thanks to Seabrook at The Marvellous in Nature, I know rather more about them.

The deeper grooves are where the adults tunnel along the bark, the female laying eggs as she goes.

The smaller grooves are where the young eat their way along the tree, somehow apparently managing to avoid their siblings as they do so. This particular branch seems to have been very popular, it’s covered in tunnels.

Strangely enough, it’s not just Seabrooke writing about bark-beetles, her mom has just posted about them at Willow House Chronicles. Seems like an interesting family…

Closer to home, there’s a large tree near where we live which harbours a good collection of fire bugs, Pyrrhocoris Apterus. They were there just before winter in the same place, sunning themselves in the last rays of autumn. I guess they must have over-wintered under the bark, there’s certainly room for all of them in the crevices of this old tree.

Not only are they colourful, they have very distinctive markings on their backs. It looks uncannily like a face, reminding me in particular of an African mask. You can see that clearly in the close-up.

Finally, one thing that often turns up on our morning walks as the snow melts is these plastic bags, the sort used to hold fat-balls for feeding the birds. It’s great that so many people put them out, but I’m a little concerned that small birds or animals could get entangled in them.

If you put out fat-balls in these bags, please consider threading a piece of string through the mesh and tying it off somewhere, to prevent the empty bag from blowing away. Then you can easily dispose of the bags without them ending up in the environment!

The snow is melting fast outside now, there’s only a few piles of mush left on the terrace. The last snowfall here was almost a week ago, and that was a scant few flakes, just enough to cover the ground thinly.

It may have been a light snowfall, but it was enough to show me that little feet had been walking around just outside before I got up that morning.

It’s not just one or two footprints either, there seems to have been quite a gathering around the food. I hope nobody got trampled in the crush!

We have bird-food on our garden wall, but in the coldest weather the robins were getting very territorial about it, spending more time fighting than eating. That’s why we put more food near our patio doors, far away from the wall. This kept the robins far enough apart that they actually found time to eat instead of fight.

The food near our patio doors is quite popular, despite being close to the house. It’s interesting to see how different birds approach it. Sparrows just come right up and start munching. They spend a lot of time in our eaves, so they’re well accustomed to us and our comings and goings, and show no fear. Other birds are more cautious, such as this chaffinch.

This is the only chaffinch I’ve seen visiting our garden so far, though we see many on our morning walks. This one did what many other birds have done, he landed a little further out and took a good look before coming closer.

He’s clearly spotted me, and that sideways look is him measuring me up, deciding if I’m going to make trouble for him or not. Eventually, it seems he decides I’m not a threat, and he turns his attention to more important things, the food!

Blue-tits and great-tits show a similar caution. They land nearby, take a good look round, then hop up to the food, take something (typically a peanut) and fly off to deal with it somewhere else. They seem to get more comfortable with time, the first visits were rather cautious, and sometimes they would fly off without feeding. Now they are more at ease, and will even continue to feed if we go out on the terrace.

Robins will sit by the food for a long time, as if they’re staking a claim to it. Even in the coldest of the recent weather they would sit there, guarding the food. They don’t often chase off sparrows or tits, but if another robin appears within a few feet, it’s instant action. Those birds have attitude!

Now that the local birds have become accustomed to us, we see a steady stream of them. Yesterday and today we saw a willow tit, one that I’ve never seen before. It seems word is getting around that there’s a new place to eat for the birds, and we’re glad of it. Fortunately, lots of people feed the birds around here, so winter is not as difficult for them as it could otherwise be. I’m glad of that.

James Camerons’ new science-fantasy film, ‘Avatar’, starring Sigourney Weaver, is doing the rounds at the box office in Geneva. I saw it recently, and I have to say, it’s an amazing film. See it in 3D if you can, it’s worth it.

Without giving away too much of the story, I can tell you that it’s set in the future where humans travel to a planet called ‘Pandora’ to mine a valuable mineral from under the feet of the indigenous natives. The natives don’t want to give up their lands, of course. The humans attack them with the usual military hardware, and the natives fight back with bows and arrows. Nothing particularly new there, the plot has a familiar ring to it.

Nonetheless, Avatar stands out from the crowd. James Cameron is not known for thinking small, and the visual effects are quite stunning. The landscapes are exquisite, and the plants and animals are beautiful. Bio-luminescent plants glow underfoot where people walk at night. The whole thing is put together superbly, with a great deal of attention to detail.

The natives (“Na’vi”) are tall and elegant, and more than a little elfin in appearance. They live in harmony with their world, respectful of the living things they share it with. Taking no more than they need to survive, they deplore the humans’ lack of balance with nature. When the tribal-chief’s daughter rescues one of the humans from a sticky situation (I told you the plot was familiar), she chastises him, telling him “you do not see”. Like so many of us, he considers himself to be separate from the web of life around him, not a part of it, so he is blind to the real beauty of it all.

It seems that message has struck a chord with many of us, and some people get depressed after seeing Avatar. They envy the Na’vi their lifestyle, and are not happy to think that they can never live that way, nor live in such a beautiful place as Pandora.

I guess I can understand that, but I don’t agree with it. The Pandora that James Cameron has created is indeed very beautiful, and the Na’vi have a great way of life. Sure, they occasionally have to dodge things with teeth the size of their heads, but apart from that, they seem to have it made. But while Pandora might be a nice place to visit, I don’t think I would want to live there. Planet Earth is my home, and I’m happy here.

It’s true that most of us cannot claim to live in harmony with nature. Probably only a few of us would want to go as far as the Na’vi, but we can probably do better than we do today. All we need to do is to go out there and start looking around, the natural world is just waiting to be found.

You don’t have to go on safari either, nor to a tropical island. You can go to your nearest beach, lake, river or woodland, and take a good look around you. You can go down to the bottom of your garden, or to the nearest park. Nature is at home in all sorts of places.

I’ve seen blue-tits working hard to bring food to their young in the nest they built in the shutters of my apartment window. I’ve even been lucky enough to see one of those chicks make its’ first flight, leaving the nest. I’ve seen baby birds clambering to hitch a ride on their mothers’ back, rather than expend the effort to swim alongside her. I’ve seen a pigeon raise a family in an empty flower-pot on my balcony. I’ve seen all sorts of pretty insects – caterpillars, butterflies, crickets, bees and beetles – in the plants I’ve grown on my terrace. Nothing unique or exotic, but all beautiful just the same.

It’s not just birds or insects either. I’ve had squirrels come up to me in Hyde Park, looking to see what I had in my hand. I’ve seen a hedgehog on my terrace, and frogs in my Mums’ garden. There are deer and foxes in the Jura that we sometimes see on our walks, or even from the comfort of our home. After a fresh fall of snow the sheer number of animal tracks has to be seen to be believed, there’s so many of them. We saw a weasel not long ago, and I’ve seen chamois and marmots in the Alps.

I’m no expert at finding these animals, I just go out and look. I don’t see them every day, but that makes it all the more precious when I do.

If you live in the concrete jungle and don’t have any countryside within reach, try visiting your nearest park. If there’s grass, trees, and flowers then there will be birds, bees, and other insects. Take some bird-seed and you might be able to tempt the birds to come close to you. Give them time to get used to you and they may even perch on your hand. Come evening, you may be lucky enough to see bats flying around too. If there’s a pond then there may be frogs or dragonflies hidden among the reeds.

If you don’t have time to go somewhere, you can put a birdfeeder in your garden, on your balcony, or just mounted on the wall outside your window. Birds will find it, and you can enjoy them from the comfort of your own home. You can really see their characters emerging when you see how they behave around a feeder, it’s fun to watch.

If you’re not sure where to start looking, there are plenty of good sources of information. Your local library or tourist office can tell you about nature-groups, natural attractions, or forthcoming nature-related events in your area. If you know someone more experienced, ask them to show you where to look. There are several good TV programmes too, such as Springwatch in the UK. Or you could search the web for nature-bloggers in your neck of the woods, and ask them a few questions. They’ll be sure to help you if they can.

I’ve not seen anything as big or colourful as the creatures that the Na’vi encounter on Pandora, but fair’s fair, I’ve not met anything that tried to eat me, either. If you take the time to go looking for it, nature is never far away. Go take a look, you’ll see.

The recent spell of freezing weather is coming to an end, but not before it dropped a foot of snow on our terrace. Birds have a hard time in such cold weather, in fact it amazes me that they manage to survive at all. There’s a very interesting post over at Willow House Chronicles about how birds survive cold temperatures if you’d like to know more about how they manage it.
We’ve been putting out food for the birds again this winter, normally just clearing the snow and placing it on the wall. That seems to suit birds like the robin, above, and our resident sparrows, but it can easily be covered by snow or washed away by rain, so this year we’ve also added some proper bird-feeders.

So many of the feeders in garden centres seem impractical and decorative, but after some shopping around I finally found this very practical feeder shown on the right. It’s not particularly cheap, but it does keep the seed clean and dry against all weathers, which has got to be a good thing. I don’t have anywhere obvious to hang such a feeder, so I took the low-tech solution. I found a suitable branch on our morning walks, tied it to the railings of the fence, and hung the feeder from that.

We also got two suet-feeders, and then spent some time looking for suet in the shops we frequent. Our favourite bio-store, Satoriz, didn’t have any, but they did have peanut butter, so I used that instead. I’m sure I could have found suet if I had looked around enough, but since the peanut butter is organic and any suet I find would not be, I prefer to use the peanut butter. I buy organic food for myself because I don’t want to eat pesticides, and I don’t see why wild birds should do so either.
I mixed some bird seed in with the peanut butter, quite a lot in fact, put it in the suet feeders, and hung them from another stick I’d picked up on our morning walks.

For a bit more variety, I tied some millet to the fence too, and I continue to put food loose on the wall for those that prefer it there. I also have a thistle-seed sack-feeder for finches, but no seed to put in it yet. Soon, I hope!

Now the restaurant is open, all we need are customers. First to find us was our robin, of course. You can see him here checking out the feeder during the day of heaviest snowfall. Like so many birds, he shows a great deal of curiosity at anything that changes in his environment. Having decided that it’s safe, he continues to be our most regular visitor.

A couple of days later and a few more birds had found us. The great-tits seem to like the peanut butter, while blue-tits like the tall feeder. We have even been visited by a magpie, who comes a few times daily, takes 3 or 4 peanuts in one go, and flies off to enjoy them somewhere else. I expect that as time goes by we will get more visitors, and hopefully more species too – I know there are woodpeckers nearby.
The magpie is our largest visitor so far, and unless the chickens down the road escape from their coup we’re not likely to get anything much bigger than them. Some people do get larger birds visiting them, such as our friend Shannon Ryan. Take a look at what she gets visiting her bird feeders. They must take quite a bit of feeding!

Summer has gone, Autumn is here. Trees are shedding leaves, flowers are fading fast, and the house-martins left a while ago. But as Jane points out in Urban Extension, sometimes there are new things to see in Autumn. I haven’t seen her special bee yet, though I’m keeping an eye on the ivy near my home. However, I have seen lots of other interesting things recently. Here’s a selection taken from a walk through the country lanes near Divonne two weeks ago.

At the top is a Pale Tussock moth caterpillar (Calliteara pudibunda). This guy was crossing the road, intent on going somewhere. I’ve never seen one of these before, but this must be the season for them, because we found another further on. They’re rather striking, the tufts make them look like a toothbrush!

There are still some flowers around, and yes, there are insects keen to visit them. This bee and the fly were just two of the more co-operative characters we encountered.

Autumn is, of course, a good time for fungi. I don’t know the names of any of these, maybe Winter Woman knows, she’s keen on fungi.

Further on, there were plenty of other insects crossing the road. On the left is a forest bug (Pentatoma rufipes). On the right is a dragonfly, a ruddy darter (Sympetrum sanguineum), who very obligingly stayed still long enough for me to take his photograph. That doesn’t happen often.

All the insects shown so far were actually on the road, for reasons only they know. This great green bush cricket (Tettigonia viridissima) was no exception. Dweezeljazz almost stepped on it, but she saw it just in time. It then hopped into the grass at the side of the road, making it much more photogenic. The Rhopalus subrufus on the right was on a wall in Divonne. Not exactly its native habitat, but well-placed for the shadow to show details you can’t see on the actual insect, so I’m quite happy with this shot.

It’s not just insects out and about in the Autumn sunshine. I was rather lucky to get a shot of the lizard before he dived under cover. The frog did dive for cover, but then drifted out to take a look, and stayed still for the photos. Very kind of him!

There’s still plenty of action on the plant front too. There are many flowers to be seen, even if they are mostly small and unspectacular by comparison with the competition in summer. These blue flowers are some of the largest still around. But even without flowers, there are some very pretty plants, like the Verbascum rosette. Elsewhere in our contryside, there are verbascum plants in their second year which still have some flowers left on them, bright against the brown of dying vegetation. Meanwhile, these first-year rosettes look very pretty in their own right.

Then there’s this old apple tree, which has sufferred badly in the late summer storms. Despite this, it’s still doing a good job of maturing its fruit, you can see there’s no shortage of them still on the tree. It’s clearly not giving up without a fight.

In my last post, I showed a picture of a goldfinch feeding on one of our sunflowers. That was the only photo I had at the time, and I was hoping to get something better than that. I didn’t have long to wait, these pictures were taken just a day or two later!

According to the RSPB, goldfinches can be seen all year round. Where I live, they seem to find somewhere else to go in summer, we haven’t seen them since Spring. Before that, we would regularly see a group of a dozen or so birds feeding on the teasels not far from our window.

We shall be putting out seed for them through the winter. Any bird, especially one that colourful, is welcome in our garden.