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.