Who steals my flowers?

The whole family likes flowers it seems...

Gnawing the flowers was never seen.. I had been wondering who plucks the flowers this way until we spotted this. Arvind brought the camera quickly and started clickety click...

These rodents seem to be the most clever as I watch them playing tricks all the time.

And they seem to like all beautiful things in life. Colorful flowers for example...

Reaching out for the nectar from all angles. No, for the whole flower actually.

And the nascent buds as well..

I am sure Giraffes evolved like long necked species just by practicing these stunts...

Yes the hind legs became more and more strong after reaching out the snout for the farthest fruits. Or flowers.

Feasting on one meal and eyeing the other already...

Keeping a watch if someone else is coming to have a share...

Tearing off half the flower, gnawing all this while...

Grabbing the flowers using both hands and the mouth all at the same time...

Greedy greedy greedy...

They can stand up, even if it is to get the best thing to gnaw on...

And this is what the scene was the very next morning..

Not that we are looking for a picture perfect garden, such activities or birds and rodents around keep us engaged in a funny way sometimes. And it makes us observe and think about the ecology of the micro-environments we create around us.

Squirrels and pigeons are urban menace I feel. People keep grains and throw edible garbage all around in the cities and Squirrels, Rock pigeons and Common Mynahs are more adapted to a concrete jungle type of living where they can survive on such foods. Small birds like House sparrows are ousted from all those areas where there are more rock pigeons and squirrels. I have observed that we shouldn't encourage these practices and do something to bring the sparrows back.

Keeping some coarsely broken rice, a water bath  and a makeshift nesting device, some nesting material around and some lush greenery would help in bringing back the house sparrows to out homes. I so miss having a nesting sparrow around us.

Trying to do my bit to bring back the House sparrow...