BS: My tits have multiplied!

Subject: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:05 AM

Yes, despite having their bush cut down and there being at least 10 pussies in the vicinity, my tits have reproduced!

Looking out of the window here not 10 minutes ago, thinking - why couldn't it have been sunny yesterday when I'd organised a garden party instead of today when most people are back at work, when I noticed activity at the nut pecker.

To my eternal delight and against all odds, my great tits have produced at least 4, possibly 5 offspring. They're almost fully fledged, they're being shown feeding places now and they fly like a paper bag in a wind tunnel but they're alive, they're ALIVE!!!

Judging by the small number of blue tits, I'd say they're not doing so well with only one parent, after Raven ate one. I'm not sure where their nest is, but it isn't in my garden or next door.

The coal tit has been seen but not often enough to tell whether it mated or even nested this year. I did only see the one, but I hope the little fella found something.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: GUEST,Essex Girl
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:21 AM

After a couple of missing years the sparrows are back in my garden.Also the coal tits and robins are nesting somewhere in the vicinity, but they don't seem to be using the ivy wall this year - I think the BBQ put them off last year!!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:24 AM

Always glad to hear of more sparrows, we had a whole colony of them in the privet bush next door but the owners decided to cut most of the branches off, thus depriving them of their cover. They moved around the block to a wall covered in thick ivy, but I see that in the last 4 weeks, that too has been removed. I often wonder where they ended up.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:32 AM

Having recently witnessed a flock of starlings actually 'murdering a pair of sparrows who happened to be eating some bread which they thought they would have instead....I am horrified! Is this what starlings do and where have all the sparrows gone?
Nice to be in touch with your tits again Liz.......I don't have the luxury of a garden these days.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:19 AM

I have 4 baby mistle thrushes (mainly snail fed - there's a constant supply in my garden), and a family of 5 (I think) baby pied wagtails just above the door in a hole in the wall.

Also a colony of goldfinches and far too many woodpigeons.
Anyone got a good recipe for pigeon pie?

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:30 AM

Almost too late to be eating pigeon pie - you 'as to ate 'em afore the vethers come you!. Roast Squab is delicious.... and a satisfying snack!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:01 AM

Your thread titles do make me laugh Liz!!!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Jos
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:13 AM

It's a mystery to me how wood pigeons manage to reproduce. The ones in my garden usually lose their egg through a hole in the nest. This year the daft bird sat for over a month on an empty nest before giving up.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: bfdk
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:21 AM

I spent some time the other morning watching a group of blue tits (2 adults with 3 chicks) going through the same educational process you described, Liz. Cute little beggars, almost fully fledged, but still trying to pull off the begging stunt by shaking their wings and calling "feed me!" ;-)

These were hopping around in a birch tree, and the parents were scuttling from one chick to the next showing them the ropes.

Best wishes,

Bente

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:22 AM

There's a pair of wood pigeon's in my garden. Mostly they parade up and down the wall and wind up Merlyn (my cat. Got a couple of magpies too but the pigeons see them off!!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:22 AM

We have some blue tits and the occasional visiting coal tits. Yet to see a flying teaspoon (long tailed tit) in the garden but I hope to yet. It's the antics of Blackbirds and Robins towards their young that realy puzzles me sometimes though - The kids seem to get thrown out of the nest before they are ready and then get into all sorts of interesting places trying to avoid our mog, Homer. I thought under the wheelie bin was a bad idea but on seeing one down the grid I realised that the bin may hve been the better option! Being followed round the back yard by two young blackies with their beaks open was quite amusing though:-)

It's the sparrow 'mafia' that tickle us though. They don't pay much attention to Homer at all and seem quite happy to feed while he suns himself on the flags. The only thing that seemed to put them out of sorts was a visiting young sparrowhawk sat munching on one of their number while the rest of them sat in the tree shouting at him!

Good luck with your growing tits, Liz.

Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: ranger1
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:28 PM

Oh, tits, sparrows and starlings are all fine, but I've got a pair of osprey. Beat that!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:33 PM

I would never beat even one osprey, much less two!


It has been three years (almost), so...


Sonnet 17/06/04                         CMXIX

Three future hunters rest, almost to sky
At top of pine, and wait for food. They grow,
With busy parents' care, and soon will fly
To winter in a far off land. They show
The cycle of all life: To win their lives
From other's death. In truth, they risk as much,
With such uncertain fate. For now, each thrives,
But balance might at any time life touch.
Can any of us future know, to tell
Our time of ending? Each of us might fall
At any moment: Does wishing all well
Make difference in what occurs at all?
Life's thread is spun, woven, and cut: The hell
We find in soul is what each one might call.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have subdivided
From: Severn
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:41 PM

Sanctity is having five of them. At least, it is in France. No udder amount will work.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:01 PM

Ranger, I'm happy for you and your osprey but as a fishing eagle, it wouldn't do very well around here... not that many good lakes for fish in London, that aren't already patrolled by pelicans.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Rowan
Date: 29 May 07 - 07:08 PM

I'm glad spring has sprung for you Liz. It seems you now have a spring in your step. May your tits multiply.

Can't say the same about either sparrows or starlings; over here they're in the wrong hemisphere and right royal pests much of the time.

But the rosellas have stripped the deodar outside my office window of all its seeds and should be right to breed in our spring.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 06:02 PM

Spring sprung ages ago.. it'll be midsummer in 3 weeks!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 07:35 PM

Liz, you must be one of those people who takes notice of the real world around you rather than what the bureaucrats dictate. I hope you don't have too hard a time of it. You have my sympathy.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Alan Day
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 02:25 AM

A few years ago I had my garage repaired which housed a nest that was visited yearly by starlings.Modern soffits and the current craze for updating and modernising houses have reduced the number of nesting sites for these amusing little birds.They are busy busy little things that rush about at breakneck speed, unlike the more sedate blackbirds who take their time listening and concentrating on where the worms are.When the work on my garage was completed I cut a hole in the board and made them a little nest box.Sure enough they liked it and have come back every year since.
Looking out of the window this morning in my garden was the whole family past and present.The mums and dads busy busying and the fatter brown babies just standing around looking confused.There were fouteen total starlings in my little flock.
A nice start to the morning
Al

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 05:24 AM

Wonderful news Al - I like starlings - they have a beautiful song and a bad reputation... I get seranaded most mornings when I'm in the back room here on the computer. There's one whose calling space is on the roof directly above the window. It drives the cats mad to be able to hear this bird and not see it!

Rowan - I am indeed one of these people who look where I'm going, rather than at the floor. After my first trip to London, I had a terrible stiff neck because I spent so long looking up at buildings and trees. When I commented on the plane tree fruit looking like Christmas tree baubles, my walking companion said 'what trees?' - she hadn't been aware of anything other than shops and pavement.   As for sympathy - who needs it when I've seen kingfishers, lizards, bright green sheild bugs and handkerchief trees, buddliea growing out of gutters, the slow, sensual mating snails, tender moments between deer, gulls shagging like rabbits, rabbits shagging like... well, rabbits.... I like my world, it's full of amazing sights, bright jewel colours and secret feathered nests.

The tits are nice too.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: JennyO
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 09:15 AM

Absolutely agree Liz. I feel sorry for people who don't notice all the amazing things in the natural world around them. Those things to me are reality. That and good friends and family. All the rest is just - in Shakespeare's words - "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing".

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: JennyO
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 09:16 AM

Try that again:

"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Yes, that's better.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

Just back from Spain: blues and greats in good shape down there. Also substantial flocks of sparrows, well-fed and fearless, bringing back memories of growing up in South London too long ago. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone....

Back to the wood-pigeons - not for the first time I wonder why wood-pigeons are a major success story of the bird world even though they're fat, slow, stupid, good to eat and can't even fly very well, while the wise old owl is struggling to survive. I've just noticed that I seem to be the human equivalent of the wood-pigeon, if you substitute 'play guitar' for 'fly', and take the 'good to eat' on trust. Perhaps that's why I'm wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 03:55 PM

Rusty - have you taken to making little piles of twigs in unsuitable bushes and then sitting on them? That's what the woodpigeons in my garden are doing... how they ever manage to hatch an egg is beyond me.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 05:52 PM

Pigeons are the doziest of all the flighted birds but they can spot a man with a gun so easily and take evasive action....so they survive.

A beautiful pair of tits,
I saw them today,
But when I tried to grab them,
They flew away.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 02:58 AM

Ah, Liz, I've been sprung.

As a botanist and then an archaeologist I habitually scan the ground around; I'm often used by people who've lost something small and precious and want my help to find it.

But I also know that some of the most beautiful sights are well above ground level so I also keep an eye out for them too.

But our bureaucrats want us to believe that winter started only a couple of days ago, when the winter solstice, and thus midwinter, is less than three weeks away. Shiny bums all, they've been tied to their desks and not seen the lovely sights out there.

Like tits, bobbing around.

Cheers, Rowan

BTW, the Google ad at the bottom of this thread here in Oz is
"Elders - Bird Control
Elders are Australia's most accredited pest control firm."

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:41 AM

Nature is its own best clock. If the appearance of primroses tell me it's Spring, then Spring it is. On the other hand, if I have roses in bloom for 12 months of the year, I know things are getting warmer.

By my garden clock, it's been summer for about 6 weeks now. Which means I'm very late getting my beans in.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:42 AM

The leylandi in next doors garden hosts about 4 sets of blackbirds. the dawn chorus is wonderful and the funniest sight is seeing the fledglings, almost larger than their parents, still waiting patiently to be fed on the bird table, when they are surrounded by food themselves. We also have ducks that have been waddling across our front lawn over the last few days, but we are well away from water so that's a mystery. At least we no longer have a house full of bats- I cannot stabd them.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Flash Company
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 10:39 AM

A pair of Great Tits are nesting under the roof of our old coal house, now used as a garden shed. Judging by the strong cheeping I hear every time I approach I would think that the young 'uns can't be far from flying.
One of the parents shot past my head the other day, the nearest I get to having a Tit in my ear in the garden at my age.
We also have wrens everywhere this year, noisy little bugger wakes me at about 4.30 every morning!

FC

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:02 PM

Oh yeah? Well, my cock has gotten bigger recently. And if he contiues to eat so much scratch, he'll get bigger still.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:10 PM

Obviously a frustrated female GUEST

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 05:12 AM

It's finally happened... my tits have flown.

All the little baby great tits who a scant 2 weeks ago were lined up on the arch in my garden, have all departed to their own lives.

I see the parents around still, looking slightly bemused and weary, possibly with thoughts of raising a second brood while it's still early summer - but the fat little baby tits have all gone.

Maybe I should put up a tit box for next year... although there aren't that many places suitable in my garden - but then I'd've said the spindly buddliea bush wasn't a suitable place for a pigeon nest...

Ah well.... here's to 6 new tits flapping about the world.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:13 AM

Now everyone will have their binoculars out looking for your tits Liz.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: GUEST,Scorpio
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 02:49 PM

I sympathise with the tit problem. We have a sparrow's nest outside our bedroom window, and they produce several clutches a year. Unfortunately, we also have a lot of magpies in the immediate area, and as soon as the fledgelings are ready to fly they get killed by these Stuka dive-bomber bandits. Our cat has done his best to even the odds, however - he has killed three.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: ShockedandAppalledinReading
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:46 PM

whatever happened to that reknowned organisation The Royal Tit Watching Association? They even had a very lovely website entitled
nicetits.com. Sadly, like many other websites it has gone the way of the dodo (please forgive the mixed avian metaphor)

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have multiplied!
From: Severn
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:52 PM

They still have fey Dodos in Louisiana, don't they?