Richard
Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary Richard
Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary
Tuesday, 13th February, 2007
THERE’S
A GATHERING of goldfinches on the telephone wires in front
of the house. They line up 6 on one wire, 8 on the next, likes swallows gathering
to migrate.
Goldfinches need to be wary around here: this lunchtime a male sparrowhawk swoops into the garden, turns sharply between the bird-feeder and the hedge and almost catches a collared dove that was feeding on the tray.
The sparrowhawk, a trim, grey male, swishes down the garden in broad zigzags like Zorro brandishing his rapier. He’s soon across the meadow and over the bare trees in the wood, swooping and climbing like a World War I biplane in a dogfight.
The
pheasants have pecked around the base of the feeder so much
that there’s now a funnel-shaped hole there. Dig any more and, as the
soil is so wet, there’s a chance that they’ll bring the whole thing
crashing down.
It
looks like a post in a hole on a golf course. It’s so deep now that the
collared dove can hunker down in there as it pecks around for spilt sunflower
hearts.