Where have all our garden birds gone?

[ejstubbs]

On 26/03/2019 at 10:32, dhjgreen said:

Yay siskins, first time in ages.  3 off having a good feed of sunflower hearts.

 

Just had four on my sunflower hearts & peanuts.  Like you, first time in ages.

 

The regular visitors (tits, green finches, chaffinches and the occasional bullfinch pair) don't seem at all keen on my feeders these days  No real idea why.

[tigerburnie]

Back in the woods today, it's a nice walk in and ideal for my recovery plan, quiet to start and then everything turned up together

Our most common bird, but difficult to photograph

[Owd Bob]

Not really a big interest of mine but i try my best to look after and feed them and we have a feeder or two in the garden, we get the usual British fare of Sparrows, tits and Finches but this Woodpecker was a colourful surprise a few weeks ago, its still a daily regular visitor. Probably not considered rare in some areas but rare enough and lovely to see on the busy Council estate i live on.

 

[Phil Traxson]

I'm not well up on birdlife but do like to supply them with food. Since I have moved to Porthmadog I have noticed that there are a bigger variety of birds and they are more colourful than they were in Derby. These are a couple of shots with a basic point and shoot camera through my kitchen window. The second one I particularly like as it was a lucky shot of a difference of opinion between the birds. 

 

[Mallard60022]

1 hour ago, Phil Traxson said:

I'm not well up on birdlife but do like to supply them with food. Since I have moved to Porthmadog I have noticed that there are a bigger variety of birds and they are more colourful than they were in Derby. These are a couple of shots with a basic point and shoot camera through my kitchen window. The second one I particularly like as it was a lucky shot of a difference of opinion between the birds. 

 

It could be the male feeding the Female as that is a pre mating/nesting behaviour in many smaller birds. Otherwise it will be, as you suggest, a squabble! Good shots.

P

[melmerby]

This little critter was feasting on the bird's nuts this morning:

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Blue tit commenced laying yesterday, and has just popped out her second. (Our previous box camera had poor resolution, both optical and signal, and it was hard to be certain of the eggs among the down lining the nest until at least three or four were present.) The new one - with a +3 dioptre lens strapped on the front - leaves no doubt at all.

 

On ‎07‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 14:25, melmerby said:

This little critter was feasting on the bird's nuts this morning:

Woodmouse. If you can move quietly and slowly while wearing clothing in muted earth colours it is possible to get within about a yard, their vision is strictly close focus. What's really impressive is that I have seen one on becoming aware jump vertically just shy of four feet. Went from the side of the feeder easily clearing the top of a fence which was 3'6" higher up

[melmerby]

We get mice quite regularly in the garden, I even found one keeping warm in the compost bin, where it had made some tunnels through the half cooked compost!

[tigerburnie]

A Brambling from last week.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by tigerburnie

[melmerby]

On 08/04/2019 at 22:06, tigerburnie said:

A Brambling from last week.

 

That's a nice picture.

[teaky]

Novelty (for me anyway).  A very healthy looking red-legged partridge is currently wandering around the back garden.

[tigerburnie]

Not quite a bird, but we are having a lot of Squirrels about just lately

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by tigerburnie

[Mallard60022]

9 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Not quite a bird, but we are having a lot of Squirrels about just lately

Nuts for breakfast by tigerburnie, on Flickr

That's Countryfile Standard matey.

[tigerburnie]

Another shot from the forest recently, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, this ones a male in all his finery for the breeding season.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by tigerburnie

[pinzaboy]

On 08/04/2019 at 22:06, tigerburnie said:

A Brambling from last week.

Brambling by tigerburnie, on Flickr

Interesting they are still around. I saw a male and female on Monday at Elton reservoir near bury. Lovely birds.

[tigerburnie]

2 hours ago, pinzaboy said:

Interesting they are still around. I saw a male and female on Monday at Elton reservoir near bury. Lovely birds.

We still have a bit of snow on the hills and some winter migrants are still here with few signs of the summer ones yet, I saw one Wheatear where I might expect to see a dozen.

[jonny777]

If greedy builders have their way, there will be no countryside birds to stop the tree/hedge felling, 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-47879508

[The Stationmaster]

Here's one of the regulars in our garden.  Sitting on his usual perch on next door's tv aerial so he can be readuy when anything suitable happens to be put out.  He's rather unusual for a Red Kite as he sometimes alights and eats at ground level - about 8 feet from our kitchen window.

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Blue tit clutch up to 9 eggs now, she appears to be steadily laying one a day. It is necessary to wait for evening for 'the count'. During the day the eggs are covered in down, it's only when she arrives for the night and shuffles the scenery around that you can quickly get a count, before she settles down.

[The Stationmaster]

And this morning with some chicken bones and skin on offer at just the right time Kev the Kite dropped in for brunch.  And made darned sure his mates couldn't get any by sitting on the ground eating his fill.

 

[2750Papyrus]

23 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Blue tit clutch up to 9 eggs now, she appears to be steadily laying one a day. It is necessary to wait for evening for 'the count'. During the day the eggs are covered in down, it's only when she arrives for the night and shuffles the scenery around that you can quickly get a count, before she settles down.

 

Very few blue tits around either in Bedfordshire or Devon gardens this year, I wonder why?

 

Also very few frogs or toads - for the first time I can remember there is no frog spawn in the local gravel pits.

[tigerburnie]

A cock Chaffinch looking smart in his breeding colours

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by tigerburnie

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Very few blue tits around either in Bedfordshire or Devon gardens this year, I wonder why?

Is that information from the RSPB garden watch this winter? I recall reading that the smaller titmice don't spread quickly, so in the event of significantly colder weather in a locality killing many of the population, recovery of numbers is slow.

 

Saw ten eggs in the nest yesterday evening, and from this morning her behaviour has abruptly changed. Instead of being regularly in and out (most of her time out) during daylight hours, she's sitting. The oaks are just breaking into leaf, so there will be plenty of caterpillars for the newly hatched. Two weeks to the carpet of hungry mouths...

[47137]

6 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Is that information from the RSPB garden watch this winter? I recall reading that the smaller titmice don't spread quickly, so in the event of significantly colder weather in a locality killing many of the population, recovery of numbers is slow.

 

Saw ten eggs in the nest yesterday evening, and from this morning her behaviour has abruptly changed. Instead of being regularly in and out (most of her time out) during daylight hours, she's sitting. The oaks are just breaking into leaf, so there will be plenty of caterpillars for the newly hatched. Two weeks to the carpet of hungry mouths...

 

I wish you the best for your new batch of blue tits. For me, the ones three years ago were the last. After they flew the nest I demolished my garden shed and put in a larger outbuilding. This rather destroyed the remaining lawn and I laid an artificial one. The next year, new neighbours arrived with two cats and in then in the autumn, one of eleven trees behind my garden (on another neighbour's land) came down in a gale. Three more trees had to be felled during the tidying up, and then early this year the remaining trees had become dangerous and were taken down too. The nesting box fell to bits and its replacement, which I had fixed up onto the trees, was lost too. So really, I can still enjoy reading this topic especially some of the  marvellous photos recently but the birds have gone. I expect they are enjoying the fields a few hundred yards away, maybe even the blue tits are still around. Perhaps I should put up a seed feeder in the autumn?

 

Edit: I should add, the trees were ten sycamore and one hemmed-in ash. So the loss of the trees was not really a shame; I've got more daylight. But the birds liked to sit in them.

 

- Richard.

Edited April 16, 2019 by 47137

[dhjgreen]

Willow warbler in one of our birches right next to the house, plenty of insects.