My three black redstart visitors keep visiting my bird feeder daily and now that berries are out I fix fresh branches to my roof to see the chicks practice fruit picking. Observing fledglings experiment and learn is always entertaining. An adult female also comes for the berries. I believe she is the mother of Apache, Spot and Ring, and is now raising Continue reading
Earlier this month, I came across a blog by the RSPB titled “Help wildlife feed the family this summer“, which encourages people to feed birds during the warm season and stresses the importance to help breeding pairs raise their chicks. On the other hand, another article highlighted the problems associated with feeding birds year round and particularly throughout the breeding season. I could not help wonder which is right as I recently, quite accidentally at first, started feeding birds at my window.
One evening, I threw leftover cereals over the small tiled roof that borders my attic window thinking birds would eat them. The next morning a group of grumpy-looking black redstarts stopped by for a snack.
Mice are tiny, incredibly fast and often live in concealed areas, which makes them quite hard to sight. This week, I have been lucky to spot two of them: a wood mouse (above photo) and a common shrew—which technically is neither a mouse nor a rodent as it belongs to the mole family.
I found the shrew unwell in the middle of the sidewalk and nearly stepped on it. I fetched it, placed it in a warm box and gave it some Continue reading
Grey herons are excellent fishers. Until now, I only knew this from the many photos I had seen of these birds holding large fishes in their long grey-orange bill. Today, I finally got to see a heron fish with my own eyes. One of them welcomed me on a captivating 2-hour fishing lesson Continue reading
Wildlife sometimes lives where you least suspect it. You visit a place for months and see nothing until one day something pops up, seemingly out of nowhere. This little water vole inhabits a stream that I have passed many times without ever noticing it, probably because it moves around quickly Continue reading
Here’s one of the two coal tits (Periparus ater) that currently visit my Parisian bird feeder. The couple often keeps together with the large, conspicuous great tit flock that lives in my garden so I hadn’t noticed them at first.
This elegant, snow-white little egret landed next to me on a beach at the Pointe du Conguel in Quiberon (France). The bird foraged for a little while before taking off again, just long enough for me to manage these few photographs.
