Outside our living room window is a cherry tree. It's been there for many years - planted by Richard Décharte's father - and the best view into its depths is from the guest room window. In winter we hang bird feeders in it. In spring it is a mound of blossom. We even provide a fluff dispenser - cat fur combings, dry moss and hemp wool - for them to line their dear little nests with and keep their babies warm. In June - it's every bird for himself. And the babies in particular.
This is what they are after:
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| Peck in place or carry out |
The sweet cherry (cerise) is a cultivar of the
wild cherry prunus avium cerisier sauvage,
cerisier des oiseaux or
merisier, sometimes hybridised with other species in the genus Prunus, mainly the
sour cherry,
prunus cerasus cerisier acide. We have no idea what variety this is, though going by its firm flesh it's probably some kind of
bigarreau.
It seemed that all I had to do was point the camera at the tree and click, and somewhere in the image would be at least one bird stuffing itself. The tree is too tall for us to reach the top branches, so the birds can have those, but I wish they'd leave the ones lower down!
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| Daddy blackbird - he takes whole cherries |
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| Adult male blackbird - cherries make your beak glow |
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| Immature blackbird |
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| Immature blackcap |
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| Two immature blackcaps, and a number of half cherries! Some hail damage, too. |
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| Daddy blackcap - looking a trifle worn - with good reason, now on his second brood |
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| Spotted flycatcher (right) standing lookout with a house sparrow |
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| Blue tit - he did it siiiiide...ways |
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| Immature house sparrow I never done nuffin, sweet little fellow I am |
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| Immature house sparrow - right, is anyone looking? |
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Immature house sparrow - OK, let's get stuck in
More hail damage to the leaves |
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| Here was the big surprise |
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| Immature greater spotted woodpecker. Now which one shall I have? |
There were also great tits, jays, crows, no doubt the woodpigeons had a few ... and when the cherries were all gone they turned to the redcurrants and snaffled the lot. At least there are still some whitecurrants, they don't understand those. Yet.
2 comments:
I can sympathize... When we left for the UK we had 3 trees absolutely full of cherries just coming ripe.. When we returned NOT one cherry remained... Stripped bare... Col ( Elizabeth was not upset, she is not a cherry lover!!!)
I managed one clafoutis and purees for sorbet and ice cream. And a couple of handfuls of straight cherries. These are beauties, but you can't put out netting over a tree thirty feet high. Maybe we cam do something with rockets...
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