Preparing for spring

It really has been a while since my last posting. So, today, I thought I would let you know why this has happened, and also, what has been going on in our garden recently. Before I write about why I haven't posted a lot recently, I will show you what has been going on in our garden today. The weather this morning was perfect, so I went outside with my camera and tripod and set it up towards the end of the garden, near our feeders. The first bird I saw was...

A Goldfinch. This one looked in particularly good condition. Even though I was very close to the feeders, these birds still came in to feed. The birds really seemed to be trying to eat as much as possible today, probably keeping fat reserves up ready for the middle of the winter. Maybe they could even be thinking as far ahead as spring, when they are eating at our feeders in December.

Blue Tits were also seen around the feeders in large groups. At one point, I could see more than 10 of them in the garden, squabbling over whose turn it was on the feeder. I was watching out for any action at the nest box, but saw nothing.

There were also Coal Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed tits in the garden today, but I was unable to get photos of these. Its almost impossible to keep up with the Coal Tits as the fly around our garden. Whilst Great Tits were visiting frequently today, there only seem to be 2 or 3 of them around our garden.

We helped to prepare our garden birds for spring this weekend by putting up this Robin nest box in the ivy on our fence. I think its in a pretty well hidden part of the garden, and Robins are often seen around this area, so we are hoping it will be used at some point in the future. If we end up not getting any birds in our camera nest box next spring, we could maybe fix the camera into this box. I guess this box could also be used for Robins, Wrens etc. to roost in over the coming chilly months.

Now, what has been going on in our garden over the last few weeks. Well, we have mostly seen much the same as we saw today... the usual suspects. But we have really enjoyed seeing a Great Spotted Woodpecker visit our garden over the last week or so. Before this winter, it had been years since we had seen one of these, but, probably because of the cold weather, we have seen it visit 3 or 4 times just recently. I haven't yet been able to get any photos, and this woodpecker seems very shy. Hopefully, it will visit again soon.

We have also seen a Brambling visit the feeders today. Last winter, a small group of them visited the garden, often feeding with the Chaffinches, who look very similar. Again, these birds are quite shy, and were even being intimidated by smaller birds like Blue Tits at the feeders.

I thought I would also use this posting as an opportunity to talk about our camera nest box. About a month ago, we were seeing birds go in and out of our nest box, maybe looking for insects, but possibly looking for roosting sites too. However, over the last two weeks, we haven't seen a lot of action around our nest box. It was really getting cold as it was going dark today, so I thought we might be lucky enough to see a Blue Tit roost in our nest box, but nothing did. I have been following other blogs and websites with camera nest boxes, and many of them do have roosters at the moment. Maybe we will start to see more visits to our box after Christmas.

We also took part in the Tree O'Clock challenge last week, in which we planted a total of 12 shrubs and trees. More on that in my next posting.

One of the reasons why I have been unable to post over the last month or so is because I have lost my camera SD card. This had most of my recent photos stored on it, which I hadn't yet downloaded onto the computer. Also, I have just had a few exams, which I have had to prepare for, so I haven't had much time on school nights to write posts. We also had to repair our camera nest box cable because it had been chewed by a rat or a mouse. This meant I could not post any videos about any visitors we have had in there.

Also, sorry for not leaving comments on all of your blogs, I have been reading them though. And lastly, I hope you like the new blog layout, and blog banner at the top of the page. It took quite a while editing the HTML settings for my template! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and happy birdwatching :)