Today to the cemetery.
Jays, blue tit. A male great spotted woodpecker.
A nuthatch climbs up and down a tree trunk.
Two greenfinches sitting just under a treetop.
In the old harbour of Hilversum, open water. Hundreds of mallards. A few coots and moorhens. Two mute swans.
And a male and a female mandarin duck swimming together.
This video is from the film Earth (2007): mandarin ducklings leap from their tree nest.
The greenfinch is found in Europe, the Urals, Africa and Turkey and was introduced into Australia and New Zealand in the 1860s. It was introduced to Nelson in 1862, Christchurch, 1863, Auckland, 1865 and Otago in 1868. There were apparently fewer than 100 birds liberated: here.
August 2010: Greenfinch populations in Central England dropped by a third within a year of the emergence of a new disease, reports a newly published study. Scientists from the Garden Bird Health initiative (GBHi) discovered that trichomonosis, an emerging infectious disease of garden birds led to dramatic declines in greenfinch populations across much of England: here.
Trichomonosis first emerged in British finches in 2005 and has since caused local declines in populations of greenfinch and chaffinch, with greenfinch populations in some counties dropping by a third within a year of the disease emerging: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 