Saturday, January 9, 2010

82 ~ The Blackbirds are Back

blackbird 1Blackbird at my window

Well I don't know that they ever left the islands, but they are back in our garden again and looking for some free dinner. Called mirlos in Spanish, their favourite feast seems to be dry cat food and they have a race with the doves (palomas ) to see who can clean out the cats' dishes first.

When there's no food to be seen, they come and sit at my computer room window and look in at me, seemingly wondering when I'm going to fill the food tray, or scatter some food right on the windowsill.

wondowsill

paloma Dove waiting for dinner

So I partially filled my two-tiered cake tray outside that I had only temporarily set out in the tree, thinking I would find or make a better bird feeder. But so far it is still there, my little Moroccan enameled metal cake stand bought in a trendy shop which I imagined I'd be piling high with fluffy cakes and cookies. But instead I've given up the cakes and cookies for myself and have turned it over to the birds, although just temporarily!

cake tray
He said thanks, it's about time!

blackbird 2
So what else is new? We are one of the two areas of Spain that doesn't have snow and ice at the moment! Canary Islands and Extremadura are the only regions that have escaped the extreme cold weather.

Yesterday we had some rain. But it is always welcome here because we have so many plants to water and the lawn is green year round. Everything grows continuously.

rain 1 Here is the back garden with a sunny shower of rain yesterday morning.

back garden rain
And this morning when there was sun without rain.

back lawnI wanted to start pruning the roses on January 7th, with the waning moon, but the ground was too wet to be slogging around so I'll wait a few more days....(or weeks.)
The roses are so beautiful at this moment, it's like spring is already here. Although we find it chilly with a temperature today of only 19°Celsius (66°F) as we're spoiled with our year round mild weather!

Roses from yesterday: Heinzelmännchen and Queen Elizabeth

heinzelmannchen
Q. Eliz
Have a good weekend, and ¡Hasta la Vista!

10 comments:

Ashleigh said...

Great pics...as always! I especially liked the rain shower ones. Also, a question...Why are your blackbirds so much prettier than ours here on the "mainland?"

Canarybird said...

Hi Ashleigh...are our blackbirds really prettier? :-) Not sure why unless what you are seeing up there are really crows, not blackbirds???

The fully grown male blackbirds are black with a yellow beak and soon they will start to sing beautifully.
There's a little video link on my right panel of one singing in our tree.

Of course it could just be the wonderful Tenerife sunshine and a diet of Friskies dry cat food that makes them more handsome. ;-)

Yan said...

What superb pics of the birds. Oh and roses too, I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass into summer. A lovely surprise.

Canarybird said...

Yan...thank you very much for your visit and kind comments! I'm off to pay you a visit now.
Sharon.

debsgarden said...

A fantastic post! It seems the birds know a good garden when they see it! Your climate is idyllic and a real treat to my frozen spirit. I could feel the sunshine in your garden, even in the rain! We are suppose to warm up to the 50s this week, but today we are still stuck in the 20s - 30s.

nimenos said...

birds and showers, just paradise to Rodolfo...

Ashleigh said...

Maybe you are right...they probably are crows...We have dove/pigeons the size of small chickens...have any of those on the island?

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Your roses look amazing and those are great bird pictures. I've been trying to get some bird photos but they move so quick!

Kitty Miller said...

Your blog is really nice. All pics are awesome. I like the birds a lot. Thanks for sharing us these wonderful pics and great post. Keep it up:)

Canarybird said...

Deb and Nimenos yes the birds are really flocking around now and I think they are building nests in our trees.

Ashleigh oh yes there are many doves and pigeons. Here in my post is a photo. They come to the tree outside my computer room window and want me to feed them dry cat food. They're also in parks and searching for food on the ground at open air restaurants. They have even walked inside the house to eat from the cat's dish! lol.

leavesnbloom....yes I have found that if you put some food out near where you can sit quietly and wait, you will get some photos. Have to be quick though!

Thank you for your visit and comment Kitty! :-)

LinkWithin

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin