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Great fun too if you've got children.
Even if you see one bird, the info goes to finding out what state our bird life is in. Therefore helping birds in the future
For one hour count the birds in your garden or in a local park.
You can submit results to: rspb.org.uk/birdwatch using code BH01
👍🏻
Also worth knowing about Garden Wildlife Health. If you spot any health issues with the wildlife in your garden, these people would like the data.
Some of our garden birds are suffering from Avian Poxvirus this winter. Not nice to see. Very easy to enter a quick report.
www.gardenwildlifehealth.org/about/
Looking forward to this. My new Hawke monocular,a good coffee and Marius Neset's latest CD playing in the background. Perfect and constructive. I love British birds.
Forgot about this so thanks. Kids enjoy it. We've been having plenty of birds in the garden recently so you can guarantee they will all be hiding come the weekend.😀
I'll make sure I'll do the garden wildlife health as well. Can't remember the last time I saw or heard a Green Finch.
Yes regarding the health of certain birds (mainly green finches), it's so important to clean feeders out often.
We wait until a feeder is empty (usually 2 days), then we wash the feeder, dry it thoroughly, then re-fill. We have 3 feeders,2 in use and 1 always being washed and left to dry.
There is a lot of information from the RSPB about how to look after birds and feed them properly.
We have 3 feeders,2 in use and 1 always being washed and left to dry.
Same here. When we saw the Poxvirus, dropped a note round the neighbours and we all stopped feeding for a while, cleaned our feeders and have just restarted putting food out. Seeing much less of it now.
GWH suggested stopping feeding to reduce bird to bird contact which can also spread the virus.
Ohhh.. better fill the feeders 🤠
My neighbour and I have a sort of rota of feeding. They do the seed one (although I had to wash it out the other day...) and I do the fat balls and coconut halves.
Got loads on the feeders at the moment. Long-tailed tits are back in force, I love them. All the usual great, blue and coal tits. Nuthatches. Robins, sparrows, chaffinches and (very occasionally) goldfinches. There's been a woodpecker around once or twice but again, quite a rare sight that one.
Excellent.
The male Pheasant which has made my garden it's home for the past few days better hang around!
Will be doing this also.
Good to know about the poxvirus thing - haven't seen it here but worth knowing that the feeders need to be kept clean.
We had our local heron in the garden the other day. My 2-year old was delighted.
We’ve been having plenty of birds in the garden recently so you can guarantee they will all be hiding come the weekend.😀
Can’t remember the last time I saw or heard a Green Finch.
Pretty much what I was going to post! There’s usually a bunch of sparrows, goldfinches, although their numbers have been down a bit over the last year or two, blue tits, coal tits and great tits, occasionally long-tailed tits, and a whole flock of starlings, they seem to be doing pretty well lately, although I think I’m the only person feeding them!
I had a feeder full of mixed seeds which got ignored, except by the bloody pigeons, but I’ve put it back out full of mealworms, and the starlings are clearing it out in a morning - I filled it at 7.00 this morning, it was empty by midday: costing me a fortune in mealworms, suet pellets and sunflower hearts, and they make an unholy mess under the tree.
There’s a couple of blackbirds regularly in the garden, a robin, possibly a pair, and for a few years I get a pair of goldcrests which have set up home in a row of conifers just down from my garden, very difficult to spot most of the time, and there was a chaffinch the other day, so hopefully they’re back. Used to have a regular dunnock in the garden, but it’s a ground feeder, and we get all the sodding neighbourhood cats in the garden, after the birds and shitting everywhere, so a cat probably had the poor thing. ☹️
There was one bird I saw in the tree a week or so ago, which I jus couldn’t identify, about starling size, similar beak, but it was an overall mid-grey, with no obvious markings, except for a russets stripe across the top of its head, not quite a crest, but close. It didn’t hang around long, no way to get a photo, sadly, but I could see it clearly with the binoculars I keep on the kitchen windowsill. Really bugging me, that is!
countzero - Have you tried to ID the bird on the RSPB site?
It sounds like a starling to me. As you know they come in lots of different shades after the eclipse, also depending on the age of the bird.
Seeing as my fella has a garden that backs on to a small wooded area I’ve been and got two feeders. One with sunflower seeds and the other with three fat balls and despite it being a week or so the birds aren’t really touching them. I’m wondering if it’s because I’ve hung them on a washing line which is freaking them out. I wanted to watch them while I made and drank a cuppa too!
One of those cheap trail cameras is quite fun. Put it up on the trees by the feeders sometimes. Surprising how many birds you get on the feeders you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Useful for keeping an eye on the hedgehogs too 🦔
golfchick - for best results the birds need cover.
Hanging about a metre out from a hedge or on a tree branch that's a little way out from the tree itself.
Birds need to look around for predators and be able to dive for cover in the event of danger.
The birds hopefully will soon find the food.
Also it's wise to move feeders around, again to help with hygiene and keeping disease at bay.
Just submitted my results. A surprise appearance from a song thrush was the highlight.
It sounds like a starling to me. As you know they come in lots of different shades after the eclipse, also depending on the age of the bird.
Definitely not a starling, we get a flock of those descend on the tree after the suet pellets and the mealworms, they empty the mealworm feeder in a couple of hours. I have managed to identify it now, what was confusing me was the fact it was a female of a species I’ve never had in the garden before, and a male turned up a short while ago - it’s a blackcap!
Been fairly active this morning, blackbird, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, sparrows, starlings, goldfinches, blackcap. To my delight, the great tits are checking out the new bird nest box I put up a couple of weeks ago, one has been going inside for several minutes at a time, perching outside and looking at all the surroundings, so, fingers crossed, they might nest properly and raise a brood, which would be lovely.
I did put dried grass and leaves in the bottom before I put it up, to see if that might make it more appealing, and it might have worked.
Also loving the long tailed tits. I reckon they appear 3 times a day en masse (about 8-10 birds), stay for a minute or 2, and disappear as quickly as they arrive.
We’ve also got a resident sparrowhawk who seems to have a taste for woodpeckers. Not seen it catch one yet, but the hawk seems to appear moments after the woodpecker arrives.
Five parakeets and half a dozen goldfinches
@GolfChick - birds can be very fussy, as can hedgehogs for that matter - I’ve tried fatballs, which were ignored, Niger seeds, which were ignored, or tossed on the floor if mixed in with something else, I’ve tried assorted mixed seeds, which only the wood pigeons seem to bother with, but those fat buggers eat anything. I’ve got suet logs out at the moment, which used to disappear really quickly and are now largely ignored!
Currently the feeders full of sunflower hearts are popular with the goldfinches and sparrows, with the great tits showing some interest, the suet pellets are popular with the starlings, sparrows and some of the tits, and the feeder full of mealworms is emptied regularly by the swarm of starlings that invade my garden. The robins and blackbirds pick up the bits dropped by the other birds from the feeders, as do the hedgehogs.
The hedgehogs like the bits of suet pellets, they really like the cheap kitty kibble pockets, with creamy centres, but ignore crunchy ones, wet cat food was ignored, or left with a big poo right in the middle, but they quite like wet dog food, provided it’s in gravy, not jelly; they leave the jelly on the plate, but lick the plate clean with the gravy and meat!
it's been too mild this year for our rarer winter visitors like the Jay, Reed Bunting and we've stopped feeding the red kites.
Following in from the jokey comment about the birds disappearing in time for this weekend, this has genuinely happened to me this time round: 2 weeks ago I had great tits, blue tits, coal tits, dunnocks, pigeons, goldcrest and even treecreeper in my garden. Now? Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing. The only thing that has changed is that a peanut feeder is now squirrel proofed.
Where the hell have my birds gone?!
Where the hell have my birds gone?!
in our garden it's usually a sign that there's a sparrowhawk on the prowl.
We've had a buzzard, greater spotted woodpecker and countless tits, robins and blackbirds recently. Today: nothing. Two deer over the fence, but not the winged type.
Next time the long tailed tits appear keep an eye out for smaller song birds travelling with the troop. Quite often see goldcrests tagging along, once a nuthatch, and this Christmas a firecrest!
Just the usual visitors today - Goldfinches, Blue Tits, Sparrows, a Chaffinch and a Robin. Timed it right as peeing it down now and everything's gone into hiding. I'm only feeding sunflower hearts at the moment.
saw some long tails on this mornings pre breakfast bap walk along with a buzzard, egret, heron, nightingale and large flock of lapwings.
Not bad considering it was wet and windy. 10am-11am
1 Blackbird
1 Song Thrush
2 Robin
2 Dunnock
2 Blue Tit
1 Wren
1 Jackdaw
1 Collard Dove
1 Wood Pigeon
1 Feral Pigeon
Didn't see the gang of Long Tailed Tits, Goldcrest or the one legged female Blackbird.😀
Aaand the results are in!
Great tit 2
Blue tit 6
Coal tit 1
Chaffinch 6
Robin 1
Goldfinch 6
Tree Sparrow 1
Greater Spotted Woodpecker 1
Nuthatch 1
Jackdaw 6.
I think it mainly shows I have trouble counting above 6. Very surprised not to see a blackbird, but haven't seen one in our garden for quite a while. Last year we had a sweet flock of long tailed tits dropping by every day - not seen them this year either.
Countzero could it have been a redpoll?
Forgot to do the survey this year, but did see a kingfisher when I was out on the bike yesterday - that flash of azure is stunning.
Finally got to do the count.
Usually the birds hide, however with chilly weather predicted they were out in force.
4 Goldfinch
1 Gt tit
3 Dunnock
2 Blackbird
3 House sparrow
2 Greenfinch
3 Chaffinch
1 Woodpigeon
2 Bluetit
2 Robin
2 Long tail tit
1 Blackcap
1 Wren.
Disappointing not to see the bullfinches that visit everyday.
Highlight was the male blackcap and great tit bathing together in the birdbath.
Highlight was the male blackcap and great tit bathing together in the birdbath.
*s****s* 😉
Just looking out at a pigeon & a Sparrowhawk. The pigeon don't look so good.
I love STW.
No matter what subject is posted up, it descends into some thing that we can all laugh at or anarchy.
Only just got round to setting the camera up - nuthatch this morning. I'll try and get the woodpecker later. We have all manner of tit's, finches, wagtails, jays and a pair of ring necked doves
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a pair of ring necked doves
Collared Doves?
Collared Doves?
Yeah, probably, my mistake - I ain't no twitcher 😉