Skip to main content

Mild So Far

It still feels like autumn rather than winter here but some of the garden plants seem to think that it is spring already. I am getting good custom for the sunflower seeds although the fat balls seem less popular than in previous years. I am putting off the day when I refill the starling feeder until I see more fat taken from the other feeder.

In the garden we are seeing the usual blue and great tits as well as the occasional coal tit although we haven't had any parties of long tailed tits for a while. Among the finches the goldfinches and chaffinches are regulars but the bullfinches haven't been seen for a while. Of the other birds that come to the feeder the nuthatch seems to have gone away with the long tailed tits while we haven't had any woodpeckers for a while. One bright spot is a blackcap which seems to have decided to over winter in the mild weather.

Down at ground level I have seen squirrels and mice on the feeding tray as well as birds. The wren hasn't been around for a while but wood pigeons, robins, dunnocks and blackbirds are all regulars.

On Boxing Day I walked down to Ley Hill Common and found that our entire local population of house sparrows seemed to have taken residence in a privet hedge near the school. Certainly none are coming to my garden.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kites Spreading East

 I haven't been posting much due personal matters but still have my eyes open. One thing that has struck me is the eastward spread of birds of prey. I have seen buzzards over Havering-atte-Bower but the big suprise in the past month as been a red kite over the M25 near Stapleford Abbotts in Essex. The skys still look empty by Chiltern standards though. A nice little spot last week was a goldcrest during a visit to Kew Gardens.  I have downloaded the Merlin app which supposedly identifies birdsong. I have had little opportunity to try it out but a quck test in the garden showd that it correctly told me that I could hear jackdaws and a robin. I look forward to using it on the coast to see if it can distinguish the various waders for me. 
Post a Comment
Read more

More Starlings

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not as Quiet as I Thought

 The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running. 
Post a Comment
Read more