At this time of year there are always fewer birds in the garden and those that are seen are often taking food away for their chicks. Even the badgers seem to have stopped visiting, I went into the garden last night and disturbed a rat on the ground feeder. This wasn't helped by the fact that hardly anything had been touched during the day. I will be cutting back on what I put in the ground feeder for a while.
Despite the lack of large flocks or anything unusual it has been a pleasant time for birds. I am not sure where the robins in the front garden nested but they raised a brood as I have seen juveniles in the front garden and also had a family of dunnocks on the back fence. A wren has been very vocal near my kitchen window which does make the washing up a little more pleasant.
Sparrows seem to have nested nearby as I have heard them when outside and have seen one or two individuals in my rowan tree. Starlings will probably be absent from the garden fgor at least another week but they were being very noisy yesterday in a garden a few doors away.
Out and about the bluebells have eventually put on a good show although not as impressive as last year. With lockdown easing there are far fewer dog walkers around which has made deer a little easier to see.
With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.
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