I spent an hour yesterday morning sitting in the kitchen watching all the birds coming to the feeders just outside the window, making a note as to how many I saw of each variety at any one time. This weekend is marked as the Great British Birdwatch weekend. I’m so glad I did my count yesterday as the weather was calm and just a bit dull in the morning, today we have a howling gale which is rattling all the roof tiles and I think all the birds might stay safely tucked up in bed if they have any sense!
The first to come was a bluetit, one of our most common birds in the garden here.
Goldfinches are quite common visitors.
Female Chaffinch.
Greenfinch.
A Dunnock or hedge sparrow, we hardly ever see a common house sparrow here these days.
A coal Tit, lovely little birds.
Gt. Tits are very common in the garden here.
They line up in the bushes waiting their turn at the feeders.
Beautiful Nuthatches are woodland birds, thank goodness for our little woodland!
Male Blackbirds are already chasing each other round the garden, trying to claim their territory.
Coal tit and Blue tit.
Goldfinches monopolise the feeders, spitting out far more seeds than they eat, which the ground feeders then eat!
Nuthatches enjoy the seeds and the peanuts.
My friendly robin was never far away.
Just as I was wondering if the Long Tailed Tits would put in an appearance, one turned up, along with a bluetit.
No, the extra food isn’t for you!
I can see you, don’t think you can hide!
Gt. Spotted Woodpeckers are such beautiful birds, but from this angle I can’t tell if it is male or female.
Thank you, it is a female, the males have red on the back of their heads.
Some birds were so quick at the feeders, like our resident Raven who loves the fat ball, some didn’t turn up, like our Bull Finches which have been most days this last week and I didn’t catch site of our Wren.
My count for this year is as follows……
Jackdaw 1, Nuthatch 1, Blackbird 3, Robin 2, Great Tit 6, Blue Tit 5, Wood pigeon 2, Goldfinch 2, Greenfinch1, Dunnock 2, Coal Tit 2, Gt. Spotted Woodpecker 1, Chaffinch 1, Long Tailed Tit 3.
If you are in the UK, did you do your count yesterday or will you be doing it today? I must now send my findings into the RSPB website so they can collate them all and see how each species is coping in our changing climate.
It is always interesting to see which birds come to your feeders Pauline – we are doing ours today. We don’t expect to see nuthatches or bullfinches and we haven’t seen a woodpecker on the feeders this year although it used to be a regular. Excellent photos from you – well done
Thank you Cathy, but I sometimes dread seeing the bullfinches as they strip all the flowers off my Amelanchier in the spring! Good luck with your count, hope the weather stays fine for your birds.
I enjoyed looking at your birds this morning Pauline especially as I haven’t seen a single one here this morning. It is windy and snowing so I think they have all taken cover. You have certainly manage to take good photos!
Thanks Denise, some of the birds were so quick, some of them showed just a wing tip or tail just vanishing, but I managed to get a few showing the whole bird! I hope your birds are staying nice and warm snuggled up away from the snow.
Perhaps unsurprisingly our garden bird profile is very similar. I’m not doing the count this year though.. the birds are only just starting to return after our time away. I didn’t feed them at all in the autumn for fear they would come to depend on it and then find the cupboard bare just at the time it was starting to get cold.
I have a huge long feeder for when I go on holiday Jessica, but you would have needed a much bigger one for your long holiday! Mine keeps the birds going for a week but that is all. I provide the birds breakfast each day, feeding them all year round, then they have to keep my garden free of nasty insects. I don’t know if they realise that they have signed up to this agreement, but it seems to be working!
That a lot of different species in an hour. Your photos are brilliant. My husband was involved in doing a count here in Italy a couple of weeks ago; but he went to a reserve. It isn’t something many people are interested in here in Italy – unless they’re shooting them that is!
They are all waiting for their breakfast each day Christina, sitting in the trees and bushes, just waiting for me to put the food out. Peanuts are always there, but the rest is put out each day. I then sit with my breakfast and watch them flitting across the window to the feeders for their breakfast and back, its like Picadilly Circus!
Backyard birdwatchers do a similar count here in the U.S. but I’ve never participated. How interestingly different your goldfinches are from ours! Thanks for sharing your great photos.
It’s good to know Alison that we are all keeping an eye on our birds, different countries in Europe do it too on different weekends.
This is a lovely post Pauline. Wonderful to see the variety of birds in your garden and great photos.
Thank you Sue. We are lucky living next to farmland and having our tiny strip of woodland, so we get different varieties of birds as well as the usual garden birds.
Thank goodness for the sweet birds who add so much to the enjoyment of our gardens. You had some lovely visitors for your count.
They certainly do Pater, I wouldn’t want to be without them. It’s the same in the summer when extra colour is brought into the garden by the butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, love them all!
What a lovely group you have! Your robins are quite different than ours, but I am sure that has been noted before!
Thank you Jayne. Our robins follow us round the garden, they seem to think we are there just to turn the soil over for them, so they can find something to eat. They are never far away and sometimes get in the way of a fork when weeding!
You had a busy morning at the feeder! If it helps any with your concerns there a plenty of European house sparrows at the feeder here in Pennsylvania! I think I saw a flock of twenty last week, which I suppose makes up for you being stuck with those American grey squirrels…
Hope things warm up for you soon.
I’m so glad someone has our sparrows Frank and that they’re happy living with you! I’m afraid I can do without your grey squirrels, I much prefer our reds! I think we might get a couple of degrees warmer next week.
So many lovely pictures Pauline, I did enjoy them especially the woodpecker and long tailed tit. We have similar birds to you.xxx
Thanks Dina, I had to be quick though, they didn’t wait for me to take their photos! The woodpecker comes every day, Mr. and Mrs plus juvenile each year so far, and the long tailed tits, most days