Saturday 16 April 2016

N IS FOR NUTHATCH : A-Z Challenge

Welcome to Day 14 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. My theme is:


'Wildlife Encounters'



I have seen a reasonable variety of what could be described as unusual or exotic animals in the wild. However, there are plenty of animals and birds right on my doorstep that I still haven't seen. For example, I've never seen a live badger, only road kill - isn't that sad?






Last year I saw nuthatches for the first time.

They were feeding on my friend’s bird feeders in the Wye Valley in Wales.





Nuthatches breed in central and southern England and Wales. Apparently they don’t travel far from where they hatch, so this might account for them not spreading throughout the UK.





A beautiful little bird, about the size of a Great Tit and similar in behaviour to woodpeckers, the nuthatches I observed seemed willing to share the seeds and nuts with other garden birds.





Although peanuts appeared to be its food of choice.





See you on Monday – I’m heading south east for an altogether more 'exotic' animal. Can you guess where and what the next animal will be?


If you want to blog-hop to the next A-Z Challenge blog, please click HERE



29 comments:

  1. My good golly gosh! You fooled me there. All the way back to the UK!
    I reckon you're heading back to Etosha... and it's ostriches! Careful they don't kick you!
    AJ at Ouch My Back Hurts

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  2. You're not alone. No one thought I was heading to the UK. But am I off to Africa again... or somewhere else? My directions are pretty general - I didn't want to start getting too technical with the compass points! And therein lies a clue... :)

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  3. Susan I have to admit to an adolescent chuckle. I have no idea what a Great Tit is nor what size it might be. :) Lovely images of these Nuthatches.

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    1. Sorry, Sue - it didn't occur to me that the tit family might not be recognised over your way. I'll have to do a post about our garden birds in the not too distant future.

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  4. Looks a bit like a robin. But the ghost of Mark Twain had a great adolescent chuckle at what made Sue chuckle as well! :-)

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  5. Such pretty little birds, and even their name is cute.

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    1. They are lovely birds, Liz - I was delighted to see them in action for the first time.

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  6. J here, of the #atozchallenge Arlee Bird's A to Z Ambassador Team.
    How has the challenge been going for you so far? Are you meeting your goals of posting and hopping to other blogs? M marked the halfway point!
    My blog's giveaway is still going! I'm encouraging everyone to visit more stops. There's a post about how to better use the image alt code -- featured on the main A to Z blog as well as my own.
    http://jlennidornerblog.what-are-they.com
    Great pictures! I didn't know birds ate peanuts. (Assuming the squirrels don't get there first.)

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  7. Hi, J and thanks for popping in.
    The challenge is going well insofar that I'm enjoying writing the posts and enjoying the banter with other bloggers.
    I do find it quite wearisome to have to scroll through previous posts to find links to other bloggers who don't put a signature every time they comment, or don't allow people to find them by simply clicking on their name. When you're visiting lots of blogs, it's too time consuming. As a result I've been unable to visit - or stopped visiting - some blogs, which is a shame.
    I'll take a look at your post because 'the image alt code' means nothing to me!
    Hope you'll find time to check out more of my wildlife encounters. (Nuthatches are lovely, aren't they?)

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  8. Lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing. https://mhsusannematthews.wordpress.com/

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    1. Hi, Susanne. Thanks for visiting and I hope you'll return to see more of my wildlife encounters around the world. :)

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  9. Great pics. They are such fun birds to watch.

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    1. Aren't they, Sandra? I was really pleased to finally see nuthatches in action.

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  10. They are lovely - and, hangs head in shame - I've never heard of them :) Love your theme, I am a great fan of wildlife (that's my excuse for why our garden has a natural unmanicured feel :)
    Suzannes Tribe

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    1. Hi, Suzanne - thanks for visiting my blog and glad you like my theme. Hope you pop in again - I have lots more interesting creatures featured this month.

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  11. I love this cute little bird. How sweet it looks and glad you finally saw it. When you mentioned the great tit, at first I thought you meant Donald Trump but I read Tit as twit...my mistake:)

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    2. Perhaps you aren't familiar with the derogatory use of the word 'tit' - but he's both a twit and a tit.

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    3. I know that tit can mean a woman's bosom but that's all:)

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  12. I ADORE nuthatches, so sleek! We had a nest of them last year and in the end we had three which we could differentiate from each other. ~Liz http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com

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  13. Oh, you lucky thing! I wish we had them where I live.

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  14. First I hear of nuthatches—but now I'm in love, haha. I've tried bird feeders here at home (we have some gorgeous winged wildlife, including yellow-head parrots), but I'm afraid the birds might get too confident... and end up as midday snacks for the dogs :( As it is, they already kill the odd pigeon once a month or so. (And iguanas, but those seem to be getting smarter... though that means I see less of them. *Sigh*)

    Loved the photos!
    Guilie @ Life In Dogs

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  15. Your dogs kill iguanas? That's amazing. One of my dogs in Spain used to leap up and grab birds out of our almond trees if they were foolish enough to perch on a lower branch. (I like the sound of your yellow-head parrots.) :)

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  16. Very beautiful pictures. The bird is tiny, colorful and beautiful

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    1. Thank you, Jahnavi. Nuthatches are gorgeous little birds, aren't they?

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  17. Hooray, I've actually seen something you haven't - badgers. A friend used to have them visit her garden in Dorset, but as they only came after dark I didn't get any photos!

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Many thanks for commenting. I appreciate your feedback.