A rare post

Yes I'm still feeding the birds and on 7th November was rewarded with yet another newcomer: a nuthatch. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photograph but it fed off the sunflowers for quite a while, even coming to feed while me, my girlfriend and her daughter were putting food out less that 20 feet away. Whether I'll see one again is anyone's guess as it's dark before and after work so there's only the weekends to view now and I'm often busy with other things now.

It did make me think about all the birds I've seen the past two and a half years in my garden.

Regular visitors and in large numbers: house sparrows, starlings, collared doves.
Fairly regular but always less than ten: goldfinches, wood pigeons
Irregular visitors all year: blue tit, coal tit, greenfinch, sparrowhawk, wren
Only seem to appear from late autumn to early summer: blackbirds, robins, dunnocks,magpies
Seen only two or three times: brambling, chaffinch, great tit, siskin, song thrush
Seen only once: bullfinch, chiffchaff, long tailed tits, mistle thrush, nuthatch, whitethroat

8 months on

Well it's a very long time since I updated this. There's a couple of reasons, one was that I got bored of taking photos, sorting them out for the blog etc, and the other was personal that I've mentioned on the GBS forum and facebook.

So what's been happening?

Well I'm still feeding the birds, sometimes I miss a day as I'm at my girlfriends overnight, and the garden seems as busy as ever. Some events of the year so far:

Two different looking robins, which I hoped were a pair, and a baby one - the first I've seen in the garden.
A song thrush singing from the top of the hedge in the corner.
A male blackbird without a tail that is definitely the dominant one of the garden, and hopefully his mate.
Loads of house sparrows and starlings and their babies.
A couple of greenfinches, but no young yet.
At least two baby goldfinches today, the youngest I've seen based on the fact they were asking to be fed.
A couple of baby blue tits, identified as babies because they were being fed rather from their yellow faces as they were at the end of the garden.

A good morning

The first bird I saw this morning was a robin, quickly followed by a wren (the first since February) and dunnock. Then I had the usual wood pigeon, collared doves, house sparrows and starlings. And finally a magpie, which also came yesterday.

That was all within 15 minutes of getting up but it's gone quiet again.

They're coming back

There's not a great deal to report since my last post. It's starting to be gloomy before and after work so so I'm seeing less birds apart from at weekends. Starling numbers are still high, with 50 coming down for breakfast and there is a steady stream of house sparrows all day. I still get collared doves and a wood pigeon or two, but I don't see both every day now.

Other regularly seen visitors are goldfinches, dunnocks and blue tits. A blue tit has just been searching for insects and spiders on the side of the fence in between the slats.

Tow bids I haven't reported for a while are the blackbird and robin. I haven't seen the former in the garden since mid August but one did appear briefly in the neighbour's tree. And I did have hopes for a resident robin with several sightings over a week, including him singing, but he's gone again (or at least not been spotted).

Two months later

My last post was 19th July and on the 20th I saw my first juvenile greenfinch. On 18th August there were two one at at least one has been an on and off visitor since then. My last post also mentioned a blue tit. He returned on 7th, 18th and 27th August and there were three on the 31st. I've seen one or two most days in September.

Not the best photos I'm afraid. I also saw a Great Tit yesterday, the first definite sighting in the garden, though I do mention one back in November. And on 9th September I also saw a Coal Tit.

7th September was another first for me with this warbler. I'm recording it as a Chiffchaff but it could be a Willow Warbler. It was darting about the silver birch (the pink and purple flowers are malva), hedge and next door's leylandii after insects.

Two more juveniles: I spotted the dunnock whilst watching a juvenile greenfinch on the 8th as it flew down from the hedge. To be honest I wasn't even sure if it was a bird or just a falling leaf seen out the corner of my eye and I had to go upstairs for a better look. Eventually it popped out from under the marigolds for a confirmation photo. This one was taken a few days later. The wood pigeon was presumably with a parent because I find the woodies very nasty to each other and other birds.

I haven't seen a blackbird in the garden since 17th August but on the 2nd one was still collecting food, presumably for its young. I was outside when this one came down. I don't think he could get any more in his beak. The same day a young starling also came down and this was even closer.

I'm now getting quite a lot of goldfinches, usually one to three of various ages, some adults, some juveniles with no red and some with a bit - I guess late and early broods. I don't normally see this many at once.

However I am now getting plenty of starlings, especially when I first put the food down in the morning. One Friday I was out near the top of the garden and saw dozens on my roof. I only had my mobile and a very poor photo showed a possible 90, with easily 10 or 20 more on neighbouring pairs of semi-detached houses. On the Saturday I spotted those 150 or so gathering together before flying of for their evening roost.

Three birds I haven't mentioned yet are the robin (saw one on 10th August), the collared doves (still get quite a few) and house sparrows (have had up to 30 and they're always around).

Some recent photos

Two weeks ago I posted that I hadn't had a blue tit since 2nd June. A week ago I spotted one on the peanuts but it hasn't been back since.

Starling sheltering from a sudden downpour - sparrows on new feeder.

On the 16th I had a female greenfinch visit (note the headless sparrow), and yesterday a male came twice. There also seems to be just one baby house sparrow about.


There are two identical feeders with sunflower hearts in. The one on the left is used by goldfinches and sparrows, and here the greenfinch - it's close to the tall seed feeder. The one on the right is never used by sparrows as far as I can tell. The other sunflower heart feeder, near the house, has to be topped up every day even though fat ball feeder means squabbling starlings are never far away.

Friday morning I had a sparrowhawk visit. He first landed on the tall seed feeder but lost his balance and made for the fence where the sunflowers are. He looked around then tried the other fence before flying off.

Where he's perched in the second photo is where a cat caught a collared dove back in April. After the sparrowhawk had gone I noticed movement of the branches in the hedge just above the fence. Expecting to find a cat hiding there I went out and banged the fence and a sparrow, that had been hiding, flew out.

It's been 32 days

...since my last post. To be honest not a lot has been happening in the garden birdwise. I haven't seen a single blue tit since that magical day on June 2nd. I did get a coal tit on the 5th that had me hoping. It was taking food from the small tray and returning quite quickly. I went upstairs to see if I could see where it was going but couldn't see any babies. On June 13th I saw my first juvenile goldfinch of the year. I'm not going to say a baby as it was on its own feeding happily enough. Quite often I now see two and sometimes three. I'm still getting one or two adults as well.

House sparrow numbers are high now, usually around 20 at a time. I'm still seeing some babies being fed. Unfortunately I get four of five wood pigeons quite regularly and they demolish the food in the trays. I have no idea how this one got here. And they also fight with each other quite a lot.

So I've put out the six-port feeder again and the sparrows used that almost immediately. I now have three sunflower feeders (all two-port) that they also use along with the goldfinches.

I'm also getting up to 30 starlings at once, usually when the fresh food goes out. I heard a baby squawking for food, and this morning saw an adult collecting mealworms.

I'm still getting a magpie quite regularly as well as the male and female blackbird. The last time I saw an obvious juvenile blackbird was the 14th. And I get a few collared doves. I haven't seen my dunnocks in ages now.

Awwwwwwwwwww!!

A week ago I posted that I'd seen a baby blue tit. As it happens I was wrong and was deceived by the bird fluttering its wings like sparrows do. When I thought I'd seen it the day before I was concerned about the fact that babies are supposed to have yellow, rather than white, faces but, as I'd never seen one, I wasn't sure how yellow.

This morning I spotted a blue tit on the fat balls as normal. And I spotted what I first thought was a new bird, small and yellowish, but about as far away from me as is possible. The Nikon showed that it was "only a blue tit", but it didn't fly in from the fence to feed. That's when I realised it was being fed, and that's when it struck me how yellow its face was. Baby and parent flew into the hedge and then suddenly there were two babies on the fence while mum(?) flew back and forth. It was frustrating trying to get a decent photo as they were behind canes and the feeders.

And then I spotted one on the whitebeam, and then there were three more on the fence, and then three babies flew over to the left fence where I could get a better photo. I have one with three babies and mum but they're spread out, and to resize it would mean lots of fence and sky and little bits of yellow.

At one point two were on the feeder pole and then they all went to the right side where I couldn't get great photos due to the angle against the glass. I know there were at least four babies, even though I really only saw three at once, because mum would feed the three and then fly out of view.


It made my day.

Another baby blackbird?

On May 14th I saw my first baby blackbird. This evening in a very short birdwatching period I saw a male blackbird - I assume it was Edmund because if another male appears in the garden Edmund is immediately there to chase him off. I thought I also saw Queenie, the resident female that hasn't been around much, but realised it was a baby. The reason I think this might be a new one is that baby was chasing after Edmund all over the garden, and when Edmund started pecking at some apple, Baldrick (who else?) kept asking for some with mouth agape (I didn't hear anything), but Edmund didn't feed him. It really looked like he was just showing him where the apple was. Baldrick never got any though and flew off after a while. Four minutes later he was back at the apple but alone.

Another new bird

Sadly no photo of my new visitor. I only had time to put down my breakfast before he flew off but there was a male bullfinch on the fence, looking glorious in the early morning sun.

On Thursday evening I decided to eat outside but had my Fuji with me to catch this blue tit. I have no idea if it was one very busy bird or a couple in tandem but there was one in and out very quickly. I've had to resize this photo to get it to fit on my monitor.

Starling numbers have increased thanks to all the young, which are starting to outnumber the adults (at this precise moment there are 16 young and one adult out there). I still have some demanding to be fed. This photo also had to be resized. The young starlings will often come down to feed when I'm outside on the garden, as long as I'm fairly still.

On Thursday I was fortunate to spot this male greenfinch and even more fortunate not to scare him off before getting some photos. And I finally managed to get a half decent photo of the magpie showing colours. This one looks like its collecting food and I'm glad I haven't seen one with a chick yet.