We had a mystery visitor yesterday: Susanna tells me that while I still slept she saw a bird drinking at the famine pot in the Labyrinth garden which she did not recognise. "Black on the head, back and wings like a cape, with white at the side of the throat, and a dove-grey underside, definitely not a magpie, and big, almost like a turkey or a goose", so she described it. "A Hooded Crow?" say I - but no, "Definitely not that", she said, when we looked at the picture in Collins' Birds of Britain & Europe, and she has since poured through every picture in the book without finding what she saw.
I suppose I was mulling over black and white birds at the back of my mind, because later that afternoon I heard a rapid, low drumming, and immediately thought it might be a very distant Woodpecker. Now that would be really exciting. Until recently we have had no native woodpeckers in Ireland. But Birdwatch Ireland say that a good many Great Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopus major) have been seen here in recent years. They speculate that this species, common in Britain and mainland Europe, is about to colonise Ireland.
This morning I went out in my dressingown to see if the first asparagus is ready for picking - it is, just two spears, to be poached in a little butter to garnish poached eggs for breakfast tomorrow! Then, I heard the drumming again, in the direction of the house, and discovered I was mistaken. It was not a Woodpecker, but a frog calling from the little overgrown pond on the patio! I hadn't realised our common frog (Rana temporaria) had a mating call, and it wasn't very loud, but that was what I was hearing. I am delighted to have heard it. There were at least three frogs in the pond, and a large mass of frog spawn had been laid overnight - no doubt there will be even more tomorrow!
Common frogs (Rana temporaria) in a pond
We have had other visitors too recently. For about three days we had a pair of Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea) feeding on the peanuts, a species I've not identified before. Their diagnostic black beards distinguish them from Linnets. They have gone now, so perhaps they were only passing through on their spring migration. And we have also had a few Siskins recently (Carduelis spinus), the first of the winter.
Redpoll, Carduelis flammea, Male
