News & Updates from Christine Dixon · Page 14

I took this photo from my kitchen window this morning. We do have a black and white woody woodpecker who visits our garden and drills the bird table post and eats the fat balls, but this is grassy woodpecker.

She's a green woodpecker who comes to dig in the grass, I presume for worms and other bugs. I think this is a female as the male has a red streak under the black on the face. As you can see her long sharp beak disappears completely into the ground as she works, her little red topped head popping up and down.

I've never seen her do any other kind of feeding and I guess she is green to help with camouflage in the grass.

I love her! The green woodpecker is the largest of the three woodpeckers that breed in Britain.

No wonder Mrs Moorhen was frantically nest building last week - the urge to lay her eggs was obviously urgent.

So, here is her clutch of pretty little speckled eggs. She sits on them quite a lot, but not constantly.

She still brings nesting material to build up the nest a little more. There will probably now be a wait of three weeks or so before the hatching begins. She has already started to make her peeping noise that she uses when the chicks are born, to tell them where she is.

I wonder if she does this around the eggs while they are incubating so that the growing chicks learn to recognise her "voice" before they are born?

Isn't nature wonderful!

Spring has definitely sprung, our local moorhens are confirming this for us. We have a small pond in our garden which they love. We've had the mating display and (somewhere out of sight) the hanky-panky and now the urge is to build a nest for the egg laying.

Mrs Moorhen can be seen all day, every day, frantically running around with strips from our bamboo, in and out of the pond.

I'm busy trying to sort out my vegetable plot, so haven't tidied the front garden and now I find I'm I'm happy about that as it means her nesting material is readily available.

And look what she's built!

Next there will be eggs, then chicks, so I'll aim to keep you updated as the story unfolds...

My garden is teeming with bird wildlife with these warm spring days we've been having. There are pheasants, woodpeckers (greater spotted and green varieties), blue tits, robins, wrens and moorhens, to name just the common ones that I recognise.

All except the pheasants and moorhens are feasting on my suet bird balls which I'm having to replenish almost every day.

However, it's always a special treat to have a partridge visit. They always seem to come in pairs and I just love their little bandit face masks. Here's a couple feeding in my hen run, on prime healthy chicken pellets, full of goodness!

I am fortunate enough to live in a rural area, where it is peaceful and quiet. My husband bought me a Sony digital SLR camera and although I still have much to learn about it, sometimes the odd quick snap can still bring pleasing results.

Here is a sunset taken in my garden. I was quite pleased by the unusual effect and colour on the tree bark resulting from the angle of the flash, and the sunset reflection in the puddles, giving the photo lots more interest.

Hope you like it!