Swooping down with their young one's berry

Spending most of my time in our back room has allowed me to watch the garden intently. The birds feeders are close to the house and though out this spring season we have had many birds feeding, many of whom have been rearing their young. Once they have fledged and practiced their flying they are brought by their parents to the feeding area. They mostly stay on the low hanging branches of several trees on both sides of the garden and house.

I’ve blipped some of these family gatherings, but in the last few days a family of blackbirds has become more prominent and less scared of revealing themselves. When I heard some squealing of a young bird demanding food, which became silenced when the female blackbird disappeared into the hedge, I worked out that there was a nest within yards of our back door.

At the same time, just as the need arose, our neighbour’s rowan tree on the other side of the fence next to the house has produced a profusion of orange berries. This has prompted both the male and female blackbirds to fly across our garden from one hedge to the other within ten yards of where I’ve been sit. They fly at speed into the rowan tree’s thick leaves and bustle about between branches before peering out to check the coast is clear and then flying back to the nest.

The objective was to collect the berries and I have seen one bird with three of these rowan berries in its mouth at one time, flying across the garden. I decided to try and set the camera up to catch one of them in flight and after a few misses I got this picture, which I like even though it wasn’t sharp.  It will remind me of the new brood and in fact since I took this picture the baby has appeared and landed on the trellis just a yard from our sliding doors, where it twitched its head and stared at me. What a delight.