My diary tells me that in those 49 days the only bird I've had in the garden every day is the collared doves, closely followed by starlings (48), blackbirds (46) and house sparrow (43). There are just 10 birds in the list with the least common being the wren on 4 occasions.
The other 9, which includes blue tit, goldfinch, dunnock, robin and wood pigeon are recently very regular. Over the last week (Sunday to Saturday) I've had goldfinches, blackbirds, starlings, dunnocks and collared doves every day. The robin has only been seen twice and the rest 5 or 6 times.
Today was a poor day, probably because I didn't get up until 9:30 and the first day in 12 that I haven't seen a goldfinch.
As mentioned a week ago I seem to get 2 male and 1 female blackbirds. I've nicknamed the lone male Cromwell because he has quite a round head - and he's the one that gets chased off by the others. Today a male blackbird appeared and started going after Queenie. Was this a newcomer? All I know is that Queenie wasn't going to be chased off her garden and eventually the usurper gave up and flew off.
One new sight this week was goldfinches feeding off the ground. On Thursday there was a pair at the top sunflower hearts but one didn't like the port. It tried the other side, which was occupied and eventually went to ground. It looked like the other one was just throwing food on the ground anyway - goldfinches are quite messy eaters. Yesterday I caught two goldfinches feeding off the ground.
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quite a long list of birds there steve.Great...the goldfinches photo is lovely and so are the buds shooting up through the ground.what kind are they
ReplyDeleteSheila
They are peonies, Sheila. My brother and his wife brought two (lots?) over last year but they only produced one flower each. The buds appeared about two weeks ago (or at least that's when I noticed) and I was going to do a time lapse thing like the jigsaw, but I realised that resizing, cropping (to get them roughly in the same place) and adjusting the light on 100+ photos was going to be too much effort.
ReplyDeleteI feel guilty now Steve, I kept a diary of garden bird sightings last year but this year it has been rather intermittent which is a shame as it is so useful for comparisons. Nice photo of the Goldfinches amongst the shoots.
ReplyDeleteseems strange looking at them feeding off the ground, only ever seen ours on the feeders, good pics steve.
ReplyDeletedenis
Thanks, Denis. There was one on the ground Friday as well. I'd seen 3 at the feeder from the kitchen and wondered where the 4th was. Spotted him but by the time I got my camera it had flown up to the feeders. Was quite close to the house as well.
ReplyDeleteThen this morning (Sunday) I could see one at the nyger from an upstairs window but as something spooked all the birds I saw two flying to the hedge. Realised the other must have flown from the ground.