Variety

The selection of birds in the garden does change over time. I haven't seen our starlings for a while but the other regulars are around in numbers. Blue tits are the most common of course followed by great tits although there have been no coal tits recenty. On the other hand the back garden did get a visit from a small flock of long tailed tits today which foraged in the old man's beard growing through my neighbour's leylandii as well as taking both sunflower hearts and fat. Among the finches our regular charm of goldfinches keeps visiting. They can be dificult to count but there have been nine in the garden at one time. The bullfinces are also reglar visitors with at leat founr individuals taking sunflower seeds both from the feeder and from pieces fallen to the ground. The greenfinch that I saw earlier in the season seems to have stopped visiting and chaffinces are infrequent. On the ground we have the usual selection of robin, wren, blackbird, wood pigeons and magpies but there is a distince lack of dunnocks. Redwings have been common in the fields but don't normally venture into our gardens although a solitary bird did perch briefly on the rowan tree in my front garden last week. On the other hand I am still waiting for a nuthatch or a great spotted woodpecker, both of which have been regulars in previous winters. Among our four legged visitors a badger turns up on most nights. The ground feeders have been repositioned this season and are more popular with the birds while the camera trap has picked up very few field mice and no rats. Also we seem to be losing far less bird food to the squirrels.