November garden birds

Its been a while since I last posted and I had some time last weekend to go out and take a few photos of the garden birds. Recently, I've had lots of school work (doing A levels now), and with the dark evenings at this time of year, its only really possible to get out taking photos at the weekend. It was quite bright on Saturday morning, so it was a lot easier to take photos.

Blue tits were the first to arrive to find the newly filled feeders, as they usually are. I downloaded the free trial of Adobe Photoshop last week, and I've been experimenting with minor adjustments. The photos below were taken in raw format and then processed in Photoshop. I was quite pleased with how the photos came out...

The other birds arrived soon after, although they didn't really stay for long, and I only managed shots of them on the seed feeder. Below is a male chaffinch and a female house sparrow...

The blue tits came back again, along with a coal tit...

But by far the most exciting sight of the weekend was on Sunday. I looked out of the back door window to see a Jay on the bird table. I only managed a few record shots, as I didn't want to get too close. We have had one in the garden before, but they really don't stay for long so it was good to get a glimpse of one again. It eventually got scared off by a magpie, but before that, I managed this record shot...

I'll probably post again this weekend if I can. I'm assuming the snow won't reach this far south but I'm sure it won't be long until I'm posting about that again. Have a great week :)

Sparrowhawk in garden again

This morning topped off a very interesting weekend of garden wildlife. After the chiffchaff, goldcrest, fox and sparrowhawk I managed to spot in our garden yesterday, I thought it couldn't get much better than that. But this morning, as I got up, I looked out of my bedroom window to see a male sparrowhawk on the garden fence- it looked the same as the one I saw yesterday.

It didn't have anything in its talons and it seemed perfectly happy to sit on the fence- maybe it had just failed to catch something. Anyway, I took a few quick photos through my bedroom window, in case it flew away in the next 30 seconds or so. But, amazingly, it stayed sat on the fence for plenty of shots. After looking at them on the PC, only the one below was properly focused...

I do appreciate that Sparrowhawks have to eat as well which is why I don't usually mind seeing them in the garden (as long as they aren't too frequent).

That's all for now, have a great day :)

Chiffchaff on its way back?

After the last couple of days' cold weather, the birds were feeding frantically this morning. All the usual suspects were around, but a couple of interesting sightings too. One of these was a goldcrest, a bird which we do occasionally see on colder days. I wonder if it was the same bird we saw last year. I'd like to think it survived this years' harsh winter.I didn't manage a photo, as it was right at the end of the garden in the conifer tree.

The other bird I saw today was a chiffchaff- a garden first. It was flying around with the sparrows around the bird bath, so it was hard to spot at first. But it was much more active and more colourful than the sparrows so I looked through the binoculars, and realised it was a chiffchaff. I somehow managed to get my camera out and get a record shot through my bedroom window before it disappeared.

I'm guessing this bird was on its way back to Africa when it stopped by in our garden this morning. It wasn't there for long, but I'd like to think our garden bird bath and feeders will help that chiffchaff on its migration south!

We've had plenty of juvenile woodpigeons in the garden recently, like the one in the photo below:

I managed to clean out our camera nest box and re-adjust the camera today. Even though we had no nesting birds this year, a great tit pair began to build a nest, so there was a bit of moss on the nest box floor, and also some insects, so it was definitely worth cleaning it out. We had a great tit visit the box a week ago, so hopefully we will have a rooster this year.

Rutland Water birds

Whilst on holiday in the Rutland area between the 7th and 14th of August, we visited Rutland Water for some birdwatching. I hadn't been before, and beforehand I was told that ospreys could be seen there. We wandered round the hides to see what we could see, but first, I set up my camera in the visitor centre of Rutland water to get some photos of various birds.

Amongst the usual species you'd expect to see at a feeding station, we saw some Tree Sparrows, a bird which I hadn't seen before. I knew what I was looking for though so they were easy to spot, and very different from House Sparrows. I know that this bird is currently in strong decline, so it really was great to see them so close up.

Sorry, but basically all of the photos I have taken are record shots. I still think its worth sharing them though...

We then wandered round to the Opsrey hide. Whilst walking there, I was amazed to see a Weasel run right across the path in front of me. I really was so lucky to see one so close. I was unable to get a photo as it was there for only 5 seconds or so. When we first got to the hide, we saw everything but Ospreys...

The first bird I saw was an adult water rail, just in front of the hide. It looked like perfect habitat for the bird. None of my photos were particularly great, but I was still happy to get at least a few decent photos.

It was great to also see a juvenile water rail too...

Other birds such as this sedge warbler could also be seen from the hide (please excuse the record shot):

And another record shot of a reed bunting:

Eventually, we saw the ospreys from the hide, a couple of hours after we had got there- they spend much of their time flying around the lake out of view from the hide. The 3 juveniles which fledged the nest earlier in the year still used the nest as a perch and spent plenty of time sitting on it whilst the adults were out catching fish. By now, the ospreys will have started to migrate back to Africa. If you want to follow the osprey diary, click here. Here is my record shot of the osprey nest with the fledged juveniles sitting on it. The third juvenile was on a perch to the left of the nest, which cannot be seen in the photo below.

It really was great to see the ospreys here, along with the other people in the hide, especially since, despite their recent increase in numbers, they are still quite a rare sight in the UK. The nest really was too far away to get a close up photo with my camera, but I sharpened the photo on the computer to make the scene a bit clearer. Whilst looking for the flying adult opsreys (which we did see, but I was unable to photograph), lapwings could be seen flying fairly close to the hide.

I liked the effect I managed to get on this photo, despite the fact it wasn't intentional. Since we were so glued to the opsrey hide, we ran out of time and were unable to visit any of the other hides - maybe next time, eh?

Bird updates

Unfortunately, a bit of bad news on the bird front in our garden recently. About a month ago, we found that the robin nestbox at the end of the garden had fallen off its tree. A pair of robins had built a nest and layed eggs without us even noticing before the box fell off the tree, and the eggs were smashed It really is incredible how secretive the birds must have been to build a nest without us seeing birds enter the box once...

Whilst this nest has been a failure, I'm guessing this robin pair have nested again somewhere else successfully. We have a couple of young robins in the garden so they must have already had one brood earlier on in the year.

The birds have generally been feeding quite frequently recently, robins included. One of the species which has visited a lot has been the greenfinch, which has been good to see, because over the last 2 or 3 years we have generally seen fewer of them.

The greenfinches have been sharing the feeders very nicely though, and other birds like Blue Tits have been coming in to feed too.

Blackbirds have also been fairly frequent, and this female has been around all year. She seems to have distinctive markings...

The male blackbirds have been visiting too...

The video below shows a video of a greenfinch and a blue tit feeding together.

Over the last few weeks, I've been having problems loading my posts on blogger, so I've been unable to finally get this post done until now.

Getting used to an SLR

Over the last few months, I've been getting used to my new DSLR camera, and its been great fun. Just this week, I thought I would take some photos and video footage of various plants around our garden. I have just bought a 75-300mm lens, but I haven't really used it much yet, so I thought I would first share with you some of the stuff I have managed to capture with my 18-55mm kit lens.

One of the many reasons why I wanted the camera I now own, is because it is capable of capturing full HD video. This means that I won't have to buy a separate video camera. I have been experimenting with the video function for a while now, and I thought I would just share a few videos I have taken over the last few weeks. They aren't that great, but I'm still learning how to get decent footage.

I've found that the most practical size to capture the video is 720p, rather than 1080p, mostly because the file sizes are more manageable and also because most computers are unable to play 1080p video smoothly. Besides, on a small video player on my blog, the difference in quality between the two dimensions is pretty much unnoticeable.

The Alliums which have been growing near our bird feeders, have just finished flowering, but the video below shows one of the flowers a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, these flowers really attracted the bees...



Elsewhere in the garden, other flowers which we planted earlier in the year have also just finished flowering. We have had large areas of wild flowers towards the end of the garden (which we planted). Instead of showing you videos of these, I thought I'd show you some of the flowers from plants we didn't grow- basically, they're weeds...



And there's more...



When I had run out of flowers to video, I decided to get a quick video of the reflections on the bird bath...



Thats all for now, i'll probably post again either tonight or tomorrow with some more video footage. Anyway, enjoy any sunshine you get today, cause its looking pretty grey here at the moment!

Back soon

I know, its been a long time. A very long time. But, I will be back to posting regularly in a couple of weeks. Basically, being a year 11 student doesn't come without its problems. I've had loads of revision/coursework over the last few months. Although, to be honest, I will admit that, once I had left the blog for a while, I lost a little bit of motivation to post again. But, I WILL be back in a couple of weeks when my exams are finished, promise!

I have been keeping up with your blogs over the last months though, and WOW, its been interesting to see how spring has unfolded in various parts of the country. I'm sorry I haven't left any comments recently either, but again, I'll get back to that soon.

A lot has happened over the last few months in our garden. And it has been a shame not to be able to share it. Maybe a massive update post is in order in a couple of weeks. But for now, I'll just tell y'all what's been going on.

So, in the garden, we haven't seen a lot in the way of nesting birds. In fact, none of our nestboxes were used this year, despite our best efforts to place them all in the best spots. What we have seen, is a lot of fledglings in our garden, who have popped out of nests in gardens surrounding ours. The first fledglings we saw were Blue Tits. We have had a family of around 6 or 7 fledglings being fed by two parents. These were followed by noisy Starlings and Magpies, Robins, Dunnocks and Great Tits. It really has been busy. We still have Blackbird adults carrying insects off to various nests recently too, so maybe they will be next on the list.

Our plants also made the winter to spring transition a while back, and it was great to have planted a great deal more this year. We have grown much more veg this year, and it was great to plant a lot more flowers, shrubs etc. In fact, we have spent a LOT more time sorting stuff out in the garden this year than we have before, so its now the closest its ever got to looking neat. We've still left lots of wild messy bits though to attract the lizards and frogs.

As well as all this, I've made a camera upgrade in the last few months. I now have a Canon 500D SLR camera, which I had been looking forward to buying for a couple of years before. It really is a brilliant piece of kit. I have the 18-55mm kit lens, but I have now only just saved up for a 300mm lens for bird photos. I really look forward to taking some photos to share on this blog soon.

Even though I take about 10 GCSE subjects, I usually have more than one exam per subject, and so far I've taken 12 exams. 6 more to go over the next two weeks, so I'm off to revise some more in a minute. Once I've finished them all, I'll have loads of time for posting this summer. So stick around folks, more to come soon.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Just a quick posting to show our results for the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. At about 8:30 this morning, I topped up the feeders, ready for the count. With a cup of tea, some binoculars, and a pen and paper, we started the count at 9:00 and finished at 10:00. Here's how it went...

We saw a total of 14 species this year, one more than we did last year. I was pleased to see a Song Thrush pop by, as it did for the birdwatch last year. It's not a bird we see too frequently. The usual suspects also visited, although we didn't see a Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit or Starling this time around. However, the most frequent visitor was a Blackcap, which was around for most of the hour. Here's the full count:

Blackbird x2
Chaffinch x3
Dunnock x3
House Sparrow x5
Magpie x2
Blackcap x2
Great Tit x2
Song Thrush x1
Woodpigeon x8
Blue Tit x2
Collared Dove x2
Goldfinch x5
Greenfinch x4
Robin x2

I enjoyed the hour, and I have enjoyed checking out other people's counts too via their blogs. Later on in the day, I saw a a couple more species, including Long-tailed Tit and Starling. I was also glad I managed to get a few shots of the Blackcaps throughout the day. They have been showing great interest in the new ground bird table, which is fairly close to the house. The did struggle to get a look in at times though with the Woodpigoens and Magpies around! The photos in the montage below were taken after the birdwatch.

Left- Magpie, top right- Female Blackcap, bottom right- Male Blackcap

I noticed that one of the female Blackcaps was looking around the ivy on the garden fence. The photo below shows it perching on the cable for the camera nest box.

It was great to see a Robin have a look inside one of our open-fronted nest boxes today. We have seen two male Robins chasing each other around for a while now, and it looks as though one of these males is now paired up with a female. I could be wrong, but it looks as though this is the case. Anyway, I was glad to see that the Robin found the box amongst the ivy, it really is quite well hidden. Maybe it would be worth setting up a camera in this box.

Lastly, I would like to apologise for not keeping up with your blogs and commenting. I have had quite a bit of school-related work recently, mostly revision for GCSE mock exams, which are over the next two weeks. I expect that, from now until the end of June, I will only post when I can. Half-term soon though, so I expect I will be able to keep up with the blog then. Have a great week, and I look forward to seeing many of your Garden Birdwatch postings soon.

Birds can share!

I thought I would show you some of the birds which have been visiting our garden today, that I was unable to photograph for my last posting. School was closed again today, so I was able to get out in the snow again. Usually, the birds in our garden are always squabbling, especially the Starlings. It was pretty much the same today with some species. However, its interesting to see how some birds in the garden are able to share the feeders with other birds...

Earlier on in the year, Blackbirds were quite a rare sight in our garden, and they were very timid, often allowing smaller birds to feed first. As their numbers have increased into the winter, they seem to have gained some confidence, and they are now perfectly happy to feed with other species. That doesn't stop them argueing with each other though!

The new ground bird table really has been popular with the Blackbirds and Woodpigeons. This morning, they were both seen feeding on the table at the same time. The male Blackbird was quite bold in this case, and perfectly happy to feed alongside the pigeon. The table can hardly be seen now, as the wooden legs have sunk into the snow!

Male Blackbird and Woodpigeon

The Woodpigeon eventually waddled off, leaving the Blackbird on its own. Considering the photos were all taken through the glass of the kitchen window I thought they came out alright.

A little while later, the Woodpigeon returned and was joined by a female Blackbird.

Different Blackbird, same fat Woodpigeon (above)

I noticed how a Collared Dove just sat and watched the action from the top of the feeder pole.

Collared Dove

Today, I saw a Great Tit on the hole of the nest box from the house again. I just hope it would have a look inside. Maybe we will see this tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the week, and stay warm!

Guess what... more snow

School was closed today because of heavy snow. I awoke this morning to a fair amount of snow, and it has snowed almost non-stop since then. The last lot of snow has really only just disappeared, and we now have a new covering! Through other blogs and the news, I get the impression that the UK has generally been affected quite badly by the snow, particularly in Scotland and Northern England.

We got our fair share of snow here in Bucks though, and it has definitely been very cold, with temps set to drop overnight. Because of the constant snow, it has been hard to find a gap in the snowfall, so that I could take my camera outside without it getting wet. I did manage to get out in the early afternoon with my camera for 20 minutes or so, and spend some time in the snow-covered garden.

I noticed that some snow had collected on the mobiles hanging on a pole, near the vegetable patches. I thought the contrast between the snow and the copper-coloured mobile looked quite nice.

The snow is covering almost all small plants in the garden at the moment. Although the snow is obviously very cold, I guess it is acting as a kind of warm blanket on the plants, stopping them from freezing in the open. The photos below show some various plants in the snow.

Various grasses

More grasses

The birds were, unsurprisingly very hungry today, and we saw the regulars in the garden, plus a few extras. The feeders were filled up just as it was getting light, and by the time it had gone dark, they were all empty again. The fat feeders were particularly popular, and the ground bird table had plenty of visitors throughout the day. Several times during the day, I heard tapping noises on the entrance hole of the nest box, although nothing popped inside.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker visited again. This time however, it only spent about 20 seconds on the feeders, and then flew onto the trunk of one of our conifers at the end of our garden. It then began drumming on the trunk, and was doing so for about 5 minutes. I was amazed with the energy the bird had. I also saw a Redwing again, as well as a Song Thrush, both of which were hopping around on the lawn at the end of the garden. A female Blackcap continues to visit, although she does seem a little shy, and is easily intimidated by other birds. No photos of these, although, with their more frequent visits, maybe they will build up the confidence to feed nearer the house.

The regular birds visited in large numbers, particularly the finches and starlings. The photo below shows a Goldfinch. As usual, the Goldfinches were the more approachable garden visitors, so photos were easier.

Also around were Blue and Great Tits, some of which ended up feeding on the ground, once the feeders were empty. The Blue Tits are fairly easy to photograph in our garden because they are one of the more tame visitors. The Blue Tits which I have seen in our garden all seem to be in very good condition, very much ready for Spring.

The highlight of today, however, was the sighting of a Fieldfare which was seen in the shrubs of the railway bank, overhanging a garden 2 doors away. Because of the distance between me and the bird, I only managed a very poor photo, which I have cropped and placed in the photo montage below. It only stayed for about 10 seconds, and flew away soon after it saw me. Shirl in Scotland also managed to spot a fieldfare around her garden. It looks as though many of the more uncommon birds are using our bird feeders as much as they can in this cold weather.

Top left and main photo - Blue Tit, bottom left photo - Fieldfare

Whilst is is clear that the birds are visiting very frequently, it also seems that we are getting some mammals visit our garden in the night. Yesterday evening, at about 9:00, I saw some fox footprints in the snow outside our back door. I checked the footprints in our "Animal tracks and signs" book, and confirmed that they were fox footprints. I followed the footprints, and they led directly to the ground bird table. Footprints in the snow really do show a lot about what animals visit your garden, and what they get up to!

I will definitely look out for more prints in the future. Maybe we will see some fresh footprints tomorrow morning. After this snow disappears, I really hope it warms up a bit here soon. Whilst I am really enjoying watching the frantic winter action in the garden, I am definitely looking forward to spring-watching now!