Bombycilla garrulus and Coccothraustes coccothraustes

How DO they make up those scientific names? A small group of waxwings (sidensvans) in the garden with 4 hawfinches (kjernebiter) provided entertainment (distraction) this afternoon….waxwings are berry eaters (e.g. the flesh of rowans / rogn) and hawfinches eat hard tree and fruit seeds (also rowan, eating what the waxwings disgard!)

I try to “grow” as much food for birds as possible in my garden. This includes leaving some fruit, planting various species of rowan (Sorbus), not tidying the garden until late winter, so that, for example, seed of nettles and burdock is available for finches. I also don’t feed the birds with bought in sunflower seeds until it gets properly cold, until then there’s plenty of natural food available. There’s nowadays a large acreage put down to non-organic production of bird seed in other countries which is certainly detrimental to birdlife in those countries and there is evidence that providing bird seed during the breeding season can have a negative effect on some species! So, is feeding birds a good thing or just for our entertainment? A bit of both I think!

  1. Hawfinch and waxwings towards the end…taken from the living room /office!

2. Waxwing on apple. It was a bad rowan berry year and there are unusually few waxwings around (perhaps good news for an invasion further south, e.g., in the UK?). This is one of the apples I left for the birds…the video was taken from the living room!

Freixo de Cima

On the afternoon of my arrival at Freixo do Meio (see previous posts and also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=20042), Jorge Carona and I were loaned an electric vehicle to explore the farm. Jorge proposed we go over to a property within the main farm practicing regenerative agriculture using keyline design.
Catarina Joaquim and Carlos Simões have designed and established this impressive garden (see
http://dias-nas-arvores.blogspot.com/p/quem-somos.html)
and we were lucky to find them at home and they gave us a quick tour of this productive green lung despite the dry and hot summer.
Carlos is also involved in the Portugese seed saver organisation Colher Para Semear (Harvest to Sow); see