I had a rather nice suprise this morning, before breakfast I glanced out the living room window just in time to see a blackcap on the feeder. This is the first that I have seen in the garden for three years. Wrens have been active in both the front and back gardens and one was singing in the front as I prepared breakfast. Last week thy seemed to be active around the bat box but I am not sure at the moment if they have actually nested there.
At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...
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