After much digging.......

After much digging over the past 12 months I have have finally decided the demise of the small birds where I live is due to air polution. I live in one of the worst places in the U.K. The village is plagued by the amount of traffic passing through and because of the layout it is slow and often stationary filling the air with burnt exhaust gases.

We no longer have house sparrows, very few garden birds, the visiting swifts failed to nest this year. Only the larger birds such as these cormorants, corvids and of course ferral pidgeons dominate the air space. The food in my feeders  is often thrown away without being touched. The local RSPB reserve are suffering too although they don't seem to recognise the situation. The feeders have been removed because it was noticed that some of the finches were sick and there was a fear of it spreading. Now the healthy birds are suffering because of lack of food.

At last

Spotted Flycatcher

Its about 2 years since I began to notice the demise of the small birds in the area in which I live. I have spent many months searching for a spot where I can find a subject to photograph with little success until today. I found a little used pulic footpath behind a pub. I hadn't walked more than 200 yards along this path when I was greeted by the chirping of small birds. A family of spotted flycatchers. Unfortuneatly this was the best shot I could get as they were the other side of the river and a couple of canoes went past and scared them away.
I am still at a loss as to what is happening, could be something the local farmers are using on the fields but more likely air polution, my area is well known for the high levels of CO2.

Back to blogging

 Having had a couple of setbacks over the past month I didn't get up to much. For medical reasons I was stopped from driving which to my way of life is a must. Having a full blown check-up 3 days before my 81st I got an excellent medical report which meant I could drive again so I celebrated with a trip down to the New Forest for a few days with my family. One would think that it would be the perfect place for a wildlife photographer, no such luck, I have more wildlife in my back garden than I found down there. The only pictures I took were in a hawk conservency.

Returning home after a very enjoyable few days I took a trip down the road to see if the peregrines were OK. There they were quite content surveying their patch with full tummies no doubt.

Friends

Its a couple of weeks now since the hogs massacre next door. It took several days for the remaining hedgehogs to pluck up courage to call in for their evening meal, but eventually one did, the strange thing is that it only comes if the fox is there..

The hedgehog must feel safe in the company of the fox.

The hog is a youngster and it looks as though it has lost the rest of its family, perhaps it has adoted the fox as its new family. The fox I call broken tail and it has been around for nearly 3 years. They are good friends and often eat from the same dish.

Devastation

 When we moved into our bungalow in the village almost 3 years ago it took a lot of hard work and several months making the garden into something respectable. During this time I set out my infra-red cameras to see if there was anything interesting going on after dark. Beside the foxes there were as many as 5 hedgehogs which I beleive was a Mum and her family so a little food was put out each night. Hogs visited every night right through the winter months even popped in for Christmas dinner.

A week ago our neighbours garden which was in a bit of a sorry state was attacked by a man with a strimmer with devastating results. The hogs have now stopped coming, I thought they must have been frightened off until yesterday when I found the remains of Mum with terrible wounds across her back. I now have just one hog which sneaks in after midnight. As you can see its a junior and as far as I can make out its the only one left out of the family.