{"id":3622,"date":"2014-04-18T17:25:03","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T17:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3622"},"modified":"2014-04-18T17:25:03","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T17:25:03","slug":"chaffinch-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3622","title":{"rendered":"Chaffinch in the garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whilst weeding in the garden, this chaffinch came along searching for insects:<\/p>\n

\"chaffinch<\/a><\/p>\n

This bird came to within 10-15ft of me whilst I was on my knees weeding one morning last month. Providing I didn’t look directly at it, it seemed unafraid of me and my movements. However, if I turned to look at it directly it flew off. At the time I didn’t have my camera with me so I just surreptitiously observed the bird whenever I could.<\/p>\n

In the afternoon I returned to my chores but with my camera (with a telephoto zoom attached) within arms reach. I had to be careful how I used it to avoid disturbing the bird but managed to get several reasonable shots of it, a few of which I show here.<\/p>\n

This view shows the chaffinch with a grub of some kind in its mouth:<\/p>\n

\"chaffinch<\/a><\/p>\n

The bird did seem to be eating the insects rather than gathering them up to take to the nest – late March is probably a bit early for the young to be hatching. I must admit I didn’t notice much in the way of insect life in the ground while I was weeding but the chaffinch seemed to be finding copious quantities to eat.<\/p>\n

I didn’t notice at the time, but when I examined the photos on the computer, one leg seemed to have a growth of some kind on it:<\/p>\n

\"Insect<\/a><\/p>\n

This is an enlargement from a segment of another photo. You can see the problem on its right leg – the left looks OK. I found this page about the problem on the British Trust for Ornithology website: http:\/\/www.bto.org\/volunteer-surveys\/gbw\/gardens-wildlife\/garden-birds\/disease\/warts<\/a><\/p>\n

The problem appears to be scale mites. We occasionally have a similar problem with our chickens. It appears that the birds often seem to survive the problem although it must be debilitating for them.<\/p>\n

You can see the full set in my Garden Gallery<\/a>. These are not the same standard as those taken by the specialists but, as a record of what I observed in my garden whilst working in it, I find them satisfactory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whilst weeding in the garden, this chaffinch came along searching for insects: This bird came to within 10-15ft of me whilst I was on my knees weeding one morning last month. Providing I didn’t look directly at it, it seemed unafraid of me and my movements. However, if I turned to look at it directly … Continue reading “Chaffinch in the garden”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3627,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622\/revisions\/3627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}