Not quite so cold a day today, and lots of squirrel activity in the garden. This is the height of the mating season for grey squirrels, and mad chases around the garden and up through the trees are the order of the day. The amazing ability of squirrels just to fling themselves across gaps, from branch to branch and up and down our fences always impresses me. The way they manage to break into almost every supposedly squirrel-proof feeder we've ever tried is a little more annoying.
Again we had three robins in the garden this morning, and quite a bit of fighting between them. At one point we had ten rather argumentative blackbirds too, but the most aggressive of our garden birds remains the blackcap. The number of birds visiting our main feeding station is appreciably down, partly because they won't come while there are squirrels there, but at other times mostly I think because of the blackcap which flies at almost anything else that comes near.
Despite these past frosty nights, our honeysuckle is leafing well. Someone told me yesterday that you can find an echo of the distinctive honeysuckle scent in the new leaves, but I haven't tested that yet. It's true of meadowsweet, though, so perhaps honeysuckle is the same. We planted a number of other lonicera species last year, but they aren't developing new leaves as yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment