Outdoor Photographer & Writer in Northern Ireland

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Spring - its sprung!

The signs of spring are all around us - they have been for some time. Birds have been more active, performing mating displays and nest building. Early blossoms have been out for sometime and cherry blossom is now burgeoning. I have even observed robins removing faecal sacs from a nest site.

One of they joys of spring is listening to bird song. Often throughout the winter, bird song is muted or absent. Even the robin, a beautiful vocalist, resorts to making angry tick tick noises


















Spring brings other pressures for wildlife though - nesting and breeding takes energy and that energy must come from food. For the smaller birds, worms and grubs, perhaps seed heads that have survived the winter, provide much needed nutrients. Larger birds may predate on the smaller birds or even their nests. I have observed the evidence of magpie raids, broken eggs, lying under trees in which I know birds were nesting. As unpleasant as this sounds, it is nothing more than nature. Our feelings about it are shaped by our own ethics and moral systems - something that we can not apply to birds. Some birds rely on meat to survive, their whole design is focussed on enabling them (and so restricting them) to predating on other animals.



This sparrowhawk had just taken a collared dove (which I believe was nesting in the tree just above the kill site). I'm not sure if it is a female or a juvenile male. It is a little browner than I would have expected from a female, but for a male (let alone a juvenile male) to take a bird as large as a collared dove is unusual. It may not be pleasant, but it's nature.







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