Putting Up Bird Boxes

A couple of days ago my dad and I put up bird boxes for all kinds of garden birds: Great tits, blue tits and robins. They were made by our friend, he is really good at making them. He crafted us about 10 beautifully made bird boxes!!  My dad put them up in all kinds of different trees and made sure that they were high in them because the cat could eat the birds!


Here is an video of my dad putting up a bird box!!

A BIT ABOUT THE DIFFERENT BOXES

We have 3 different types of bird boxes. Each one is designed for a different species - blue tits, great tits,sparrows  and  robins. There are 2 main types of bird boxes, the open fronted bird boxes which are for robins and the hole fronted boxes which  are for the tits. The size of the holes differ - 28mm  for the great tits and the size of the blue tit holes are a little smaller at 25mm.  WHY do we have so many bird boxes???  We want to have lots of birds in our garden so that they can prey upon the caterpillars that eat our plants and vegetables. If you want to learn how to make these bird boxes then click  here.

When we were putting the bird boxes up, our neighbour called us over to look at her new birds that some one gave to her. As soon as I saw them I recognized them to be some kind of partridge and I was right :), they are called grey partridges. They are stunning! Their necks are orange-brown and they have grey feathers on their body. Here is an picture of these breathtaking birds.

Grey partridges - Perdix perdix

Pond life in the winter- terrapins and fish

My Pond Turtle-  Emys orbicularis

What do turtles do in the winter? Turtles will hibernate on land, they will dig into the soil under the frost line, and sometimes will go in very deep leaf litter. They can also hibernate in the water. Turtles breathe with their lungs, at least from spring to late autumn. They need very little oxygen when they are hibernating and if they hibernate in the water they can get it from there.  In winter their metabolism will slow right down to the bare minimum needed for life, their heart will slowly stop beating and they will breathe very slowly.  If you watch them, you will notice that they breathe very quickly in the summer and then very slowly when it's winter. Food is no problem when hibernating  for the turtle, because they will hunt for a couple of days before winter until they can't eat anymore! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00KJb8yW2Q - here is an video of my pond turtle eating bread!

Common carp- Cyprinus carpio

What do our fish do in the winter?  Common carp hibernate under mud in the ponds .We dug our pond deep in the ground so that the carp could over winter there. Apparently the carp like to go to deeper waters because it's warmer then the shallow waters at winter! Carp can survive very cold winters. We know that for sure because here in Bulgaria there are some very cold winters and they still live. Last year we had carp, perch and roach in our pond but after the winter ended there were only carp left. I could see loads of dead perch and roaches when the ice had melted but not one single carp - they had all lived!

Pond Life In The Winter- Frogs and Grass snakes

I wanted to know about what happens to all of the nature from our pond in winter. For example where they hibernate, how do they survive and lots more. So i'm going to  make a blog series and share what I learn.

Here is a video of a  frog in my pond croaking

What do frogs do in the winter?- Common frogs will normally hibernate in water for example rivers,streams,springs and ditches. However some will hibernate on land, buried in soil or in small caves and logs. In Finland Common frogs have even been found hibernating in dens of adders!!!! (Vipera berus). Another species of European frog that usually hibernates on land (Rana lessonae), the pool frog, can sometimes move between  hibernation periods in the winter. The marsh frog, (Rana riaibunda) the biggest and most aquatic frog, mainly hibernates under water in ponds but sometimes leaves the ponds that they have been in for years and moves to a river to hibernate. Rarely marsh frog babies  will spend the winter on land. Me and my dad were wondering how do these frogs survive in the cold winter? Antifreeze! Basically frogs have lots of sugars in there organs that prevents them from freezing, they will stop breathing and the heart will not beat until it gets warmer again  

What do Grass snakes do in the winter?-   The grass snakes hibernate from October to April in Composts or holes in the ground. They normally will hibernate alone but sometimes they can hibernate together. They will stay in hibernation until it gets warmer.

Next week I'm going to publish a blog about terrapins and fish in our pond! Stay tuned for my new post and learn some amazing facts!!

Facts About Great Tits

Great Tit Parus major

• Great tits eat Spiders and Insects which are captured by foliage gleaning.
• During the breeding season they like to feed protein-rich caterpillars to there young.
• Great tits help to reduce caterpillars damage to apple orchards  by 50% .
• In autumn and winter they add seeds and berries to there diet.
• In England some of the Great tits know how to open foil caps of milk bottles.
• In 2009 Great Tits were recorded to kill Bats!!!
• These are the first song birds to be seen to kill Bats!!
• Also these strange birds have been know to use a pin needle to get out grubs from a hole in a tree!!!!!! OMG

Here are some great tits  feeding from a bird feeders we made

                                        

We are going to put 10 bird boxes up and hopefully the great tits will nest in them.
Here is a picture of one of the bird feeders we going to get!

 

Our friend is making us some bird feeders

My new video - (My Bird Feeder)

So basically what i have done is played around with an video program  called Wondershare were you can cut the videos, add music and lots of other stuff, its a great program to use for beginners, and i really like it .
So any way here is a video i made with that program hope you like it
and don't forget to like,comment and subscribe thank you!!! :):)

Meeting a Vole

Common Vole

Me and my dad were going to our land to put up some bird feeders we made. I put them up on a tree and went to lay on the ground and enjoy the sun then I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see what it was. When I turned around I saw the ground being lifted up by something, so I watched quietly and exited to see what it was. Then I spotted a little voles head pop up from the ground. It looked at me and went straight back to its hole i explored the area were it came out from and I saw three holes, I was wondering what hole it went in so i waited for it to show its self again and shore enough it did it came out of the 1st hole but this time it wasn't scared of me, but it just stared at my face. After a while of staring it heard my dad and ran down the hole again I got some footage of it but you can just about see the vole.

INFO ABOUT COMMON VOLES 

Predators: Buzzards,Tawny owls,Long eared owls,Barn owls,Adders and foxes

The underground nests are dug 30 to 40 cm deep in the ground, and is used for them to keep the food in, and for offspring raising, they also use it to sleep in.

The nests can be shared with up to 5 females with the young!!

They manly eat grass and herbs, and in the winter they can even eat bark!

The Real Christmas Robin

I went to England to spend Christmas with my family. My grandma and granddad  had a big surprise for me. They put some crumbs on my hand and told me to go outside the  house. I went outside the house thinking to myself I have crumbs on my hand what kind of surprise could it be and all of a sudden a wild robin flew to my hand and started to eat the crumbs. It was EPIC!!!. The robins name is Shorty because my Grandma makes short bread and we feed Shorty with short bread crumbs ;).

INFO ABOUT ROBINS - European Robin - Erithacus rubecula

Robins are the only birds that you will hear singing on Christmas day!

Male Robins are very aggressive birds, they will attack other males robins 

they say that 10% of  male robins die because of the fighting!

The robins has an average life span of 1 year! all though one robin has been recorded to live up to 12 years!!!!

An adult robin is 12-14 cm long and weighs 16-22 g