It's nice to look at pictures of tits on Christmas Day. I took these tit pictures from a bird hide that overlooks Willow Pool at the Potteric Carr Nature Reserve near Doncaster yesterday afternoon. Tits can be hard to photograph as they are skittish, fast moving creatures so I ended up taking forty pictures or more and these were the best three. They're all great tits, not to be confused with blue tits or coal tits.
But as I was watching, two other creatures came to the bird feeding station. A female pheasant and an American grey squirrel. Surely, the grey squirrel must rank with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca Cola and McDonalds as one of our most unwelcome North American imports. It has spread so greedily and unremittingly throughout the British Isles, since its first appearance here in 1876, driving our beautiful native red squirrel to the edge of extinction.
Excellent photos.
ReplyDeleteWhat have the Americans ever done for us?
Fought on our side in two big wars.
Given us affordable PCs
Provided Blogspot FOC.
Rock and Roll.
Amazon.
But apart from all that..........They do try to do their best.
What about the atom bomb and peanut butter and TV commercials?
DeleteBTW A fellow geograph-er is curreently in Garlieston. See this link:-
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3789406
And sweet baked beans.
DeleteBacon with syrup on.
Yes thanks for the link. I'll have a look at this Geograph business tomorrow during the wind and rain.
So far, over here in Germany the American grey squirrel has not set up shop. We still have the red squirrel in abundance, I sometimes see them here in the garden. They are not all red, by the way. I've seen some so dark brown they nearly look black. I quite like them, although up close they are nasty little things who do not shy away from robbing nests and killing baby birds. Well, such is nature, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAs for tits, the ones I see here most are coal tits, very rarely the blue ones.
I had no idea that German tits were different from English tits.
DeleteFunny,I just stopped for a fag break and a slug of DomTom before prepping all my veg!
ReplyDeleteNice photos,, YP,I hope you are enjoying Christmas.
Was this slug you mentioned crawling up the side of the bottle?
DeleteI hope you enjoy the rest of your Christmas too. I guess you roast ostriches in place of turkeys! I'll have a leg please Cap'n Tom!
We have neither tits not squirrels in NZ and on Lewis there are some tits (though I've never seen any at Eagleton) but no squirrels.
ReplyDeleteNature is what nature is (says I with consummate logic) and I'm not keen on grey squiggles because they predate (is there such a verb?) on things I do like. I think I'm far from alone in not liking them. However I dislike hedgehogs for similar reasons but on the whole they seem to be regarded as loveable creatures. Given that squiggles are furry attractive-looking creatures and hedgehogs are not (except when portrayed by Beatrix Potter) where is the logic in that?
I heard about the hedgehogs of Lewis - another environmental disaster. Of course New Zealand knows all too well what happens when non-native species are introduced on purpose or by accident. Perhaps the worst of all is the lesser spotted human being!
ReplyDeleteWe have a family of blue tits living in our garden. I've tried to photograph them but they don't stay still long enough to focus on them so well done .
ReplyDelete