Waxwing Wednesday

This morning I decided to head out for a wander around the campus this morning to see what I could see. The weather is slightly better today (it's not raining), so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go out and take a few pictures. It was about 9:30 when I went out, and I stayed out for over two hours looking around. The campus is quite a large area, so it takes a little while to look around all of it. 

I started around the lake area, which I've not really checked out for a couple of weeks. The first sight that greeted me was this Mute Swan: 

I was then pleasantly surprised to come across this Egyptian goose family with goslings. Spring really must be on the way! 

Along with the Swans and Egyptian Geese were Mallards and Canada Geese. The photo below shows a few of those birds together...

Lots more water birds could be seen along the edges of the lake, including Coots and Moorhens. 

Robins, a few Wrens, Blue, Great and Long-Tailed Tits, Blackbirds and a Song Thrush were all seen as I wandered on the path around the lake. As I got nearer to the end of the lake path, I spotted a group of Chaffinches and Goldfinches flitting around in the trees. I watched them for a couple of minutes, and then watched as a group of Siskins joined them at the top of an Alder tree. I had been told that Siskins could be seen around the campus at the moment, so it was good to spot them. We don't usually get too many of them where I live so it was a bonus to see them here. A bad record shot of a Siskin that refused to face the camera is below: 

I saw a couple more Wrens around the last part of the lake path, and a cormorant flying overhead, and then I decided to head to the woodland area of the campus to see what I could see. Blue and Great Tits were the first birds I saw as I started my walk, but I was unable to get any decent photos. It wasn't long before I came across a group of about 5-6 birdwatchers looking at the Firecrest in a tree surrounded by ivy. It seemed as though the bird had already been there for a little while before I got there, and the only view I got of it was a very brief glimpse of the bird as it flew off. It was good to see that the bird is still around though. It was also very pleasing to see that so many people had an interest in this tiny bird. 

After a few minutes of trying and failing to see the Firecrest again in the area, I decided to head off further into the woodland to see what else was around. There was lots more activity to be seen, and I was thrilled to see a Treecreeper again which I've now seen on my last two visits to the woodland. I managed an average photo of the bird as it climbed a tree in its unique fashion. 

I decided to stick around the area which I saw the Treecreeper for a while, as there was lots of activity in this area. I saw another Wren, and lots of other common birds too. I was  very surprised to then see a Pheasant in the distance, a bird I've never seen on campus and didn't really expect to see on campus. I managed a record shot below: 

I came across two or three more people wandering round the woodland with binoculars around this area, including a woman who was watching a Goldcrest flitting through the brambles low to the ground. I was able to get really close to the bird but it just kept moving every time I had it in frame. In the end I only managed this record shot as it hung upside down off a little branch. 

A couple of minutes later, this Song Thrush was seen foraging around on the woodland floor looking for grubs: 

And this Blackbird a bit further on. Near to where I saw this Blackbird, I also saw a Nuthatch on the trunk of a tree in its characteristic pose, which was another good bird to see, and one which I've seen on nearly every outing on the campus.

After some time looking through the woods, I decided to make my way back to my halls. But I had one more bird to look for. Over the last week or so, Waxwings have been seen on campus, and there had been sightings both yesterday, and this morning. They had apparently been seen just outside the Chemistry building on campus, in a tree containing lots of berries. I headed over that way, although to be honest, I went there only on the off chance that I might see them. The fact that they had been seen earlier in the morning while I was looking around the rest of campus made me think that they might have disappeared by the time I got to the area they had been sighted. 

But I was in luck. I walked on the path alongside the Chemistry building and saw a small group of around 10 birds flying from the top of one tree to another. They were very vocal and almost immediately I could see that they were Waxwings, with their distinctive behaviour and appearance. It was fascinating to listen to them as they appeared to be chatting to one another. They are really such striking birds. I had never seen them before, so it was such a nice surprise to see them on the university campus. Whilst they were at the tops of the trees I got a few record shots: 

Even just seeing these birds was enough for me, but I had even more luck, as one or two of the birds flew down to a much smaller tree bearing lots of berries, and allowed me to get a few better photos. These birds seemed remarkably tame and allowed me to get pretty close to them. Only a few of these photos are any good, but I was so glad to get any kind of photo to be honest. The low light meant that I bumped the ISO up to 800 for some shots, and 1600 for others. So the images are a bit grainy but I'm still pleased with them.

The photo below was probably the best of the bunch and shows the bird most clearly:

The tuft on the top of the Waxwing's head is so exxagerated in the photo below, making an otherwise terrible photo of the bird facing away from the camera quite interesting.

The thing that amazed me most about these birds is how opportunistic these birds are. The Chemistry building is relatively close to the centre of campus, and lots of people wander along the paths beside that building, so seeing them there really was a surprise. From what I've been hearing, the Waxwings that have migrated here from Scandinavia have split up into smaller groups than usual, explaining why there were only 10 or so birds here on campus. It's great to think that some of the trees here on campus are supporting such a range of species.  

Overall today I saw a total of 31 species, which is really quite impressive for a couple of hours walking around. The Waxwings truly made my day, and fingers crossed they'll stay around for a little while get so I can get a couple more sightings of these gorgeous birds. 

I'll leave today's post at that I think. I need to make a quick trip into town and get some work done, so lots more stuff to be done today. Thanks for reading and have a great week :D 

Catching up

Hi all :) Before completely starting a clean sheet with this blog, there is some stuff which I really want to get posted without it getting buried under all my new photos and videos. Most of it is photos and videos from last year. Trouble is, once you've got into the habit of not updating it for a while, it can get much harder to get back to regular posting again. I really would like to get back into blogging and I won't ever leave this blog for good.

Obviously, should I go on to uni next year (which is the plan), blogging is pretty much going to be impossible, mostly given that I won't have a garden to post about :D The great thing about blogging though is that its entirely your own choice how or when you post. There should be no pressure attached. I've found in the past that trying to do a post when you're not motivated to do it is almost pointless. So in the future I will post whenever I can, and whenever I feel like it really. And if we have nest box activity in our camera next box, material on that will definitely get posted.

Cheers for sticking with me, and hopefully I'll be back on track with this from now on.

So, lets kick off then... back in May when I left you, I was half way through what was looking like quite a promising camera nest box diary. A pair of blue tits had built a nest, the female laid 7 eggs, and all 7 chicks looked to be growing quickly into healthy little blue tits. Both parents were regularly feeding the chicks mostly with caterpillars which seemed to be in decent supply. Unfortunately though, the male parent seemed to disappear at a pretty crucial time. I just didn't see him after he left, even feeding in the garden. So it might have been that he'd been eaten by something but I just don't know.

Anyway, things started to go downhill from here. The female blue tit was left to find food chicks by herself and was clearly struggling. She was spending far too long out of the nest looking for food. It seemed that the caterpillars which were in good supply a few days earlier had begun to run out, and she ended up bringing in suet from the fat blocks in the garden. She also spent too long sat on the nest at times and looked tired. The chicks became obviously weaker. I don't remember exactly how long the process took, but I remember being amazed at the speed at which a previously healthy looking nest goes downhill. Sadly, all 7 chicks died in the end after what had been an intriguing few weeks.

It was great though seeing that other blue tit nests around our area had been successful, as fledglings came to feed in our garden in the following weeks. And even though our nest wasn't successful, it was our first nest box diary and it was incredible to see what we did.

Anyway, enough of that, here's a few photos I never got round to posting last year :) I think these few photos were taken around the same time as the nest box diary actually, but I just didn't do anything with them as I was so focussed on the nest box at the time:

On the hunt for worms...

That's all for now, should hopefully be posting more catch up posts like this in the near future :)

Male blackbird about

-- NOTE - This post was done in March 2012, but I have posted it so that appears as having been published on the 2nd May 2011 --

With all the stuff going on in the camera nest box at this point of the year, I never got around to posting many of the pictures of stuff going on around our garden at the time . The photos below show a blackbird having a look around our lawn looking for insects- presumably looking after a nest of chicks at the time.

These are actually probably some of the best blackbird photos I have taken and they all came out rather well. As long as they come close enough, they aren't one of the more difficult birds to photograph, but getting a nice selection of photos is still nice. Keep checking back to the 2011 catch up post for more stuff that never got posted from last year.

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.

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!

Summer mix & match

Over the last few weeks, I have been collecting some garden photos for this posting. I thought I would do a bit of a mix and match posting, rounding off the summer so far. I haven't posted in a while, so this posting has quite a few photos in store...

First up then, a photo which I should have posted ages ago. It really is a bit out of date now. A month or two ago, we saw Alliums bursting out in the front garden. It is the first year we have planted them, and certainly won't be the last either.


In the back garden, the birds have been busy feeding most of the time, despite the hot weather. This female Chaffinch was seen amongst the fruit bushes a couple of weeks ago. I was quite surprised with how well the photo came out. Its sometimes not until you view the photo on the computer these things.


The Goldfinches have really got through the Nyjer Seed fast recently. The feeder is now quite near the end of the garden so it seems to be getting more visitors. I'm not sure why, but photos of Goldfinches taken by me often appear quite grainy.


And lastly, a Blackbird, which looks to be a juvenile, although it may just be a female. We have seen a few more Blackbirds around this year.


Hopefully I can get back to frequent posting now. I have a couple more postings planned for this week. Even though this is my first post i a while, I have still been reading all of your blogs too. As it is the summer holidays here, I have lots of time to do more on the blog.

Norfolk birds

So, here I am posting about our family holiday to Norfolk which I have just come home from. We stayed in a nice cottage in northern Norfolk (rather near where Springwatch is currently being filmed at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve this week). The variety of wildlife seen around the garden and grounds of the cottage was amazing. I think I will share my Norfolk wildlife and plant sightings over at least 2 posts. The grounds of the cottage were amazing. My favourite part of the grounds was the small lake pictured below.

Pretty much as soon as we went into the back garden of the cottage for the first time, we saw Blue Tits were nesting in a small hole in a wall. The adults were seen flying in and out of the hole with insects all the time and it was difficult to follow. This activity was constant until later on in the week when the Blue Tits stopped feeding the young. We think that they must have fledged, although we have not seen any fledglings around. Of course it is possible that the nest was predated but the hole was too small for anything large to get in and take the young. The picture below shows the hole.

Also nesting nearby, but in the grounds of the cottage rather than the back garden were Goldcrests. In a conifer tree, a pair of Goldcrests were rearing young in a tiny nest on the end of the branch. The young looked very close to fledgling when I saw them on the first day of the holiday. It looked like there were 2 or 3 chicks crowded inside the nest. One of them decided to exercise his/her wings outside the nest, before returning to the nest cup. I just managed to get a picture before it hopped back inside the nest, which is seen in the top left image of the photo montage below. The nest was empty the next day so I am assuming they have fledged.

Other fledglings that were seen around were Great Tit (main picture in montage) and Coal Tit (bottom left photo in montage).

Also nesting in the garden of the cottage were Blackbirds who had built a nest high up in a shrub. Unfortunately, while the male was around, it only appeared to be the female who was feeding the chicks. Nevertheless, the female came in frequently with mouthfulls of insects.

The first picture below is of the female perched on the garden wall about to fly into the nest. The second photo is of the nest, which I managed to take a quickly and quietly. If you look carefully, you should be able to see the beaks of a couple of chicks. Maybe they will fledge next week. The photos were taken this morning before we left.

A flock of 15-20 Long-tailed Tits visited the garden twice and were very entertaining. They always look busy and never seem to stop. These little birds were flitting around the branches of a tree in the garden. I love the way they follow each other around. The biggest flock we have seen in our garden at home was made up of around 10 or 11 birds, so I was impressed to see such large numbers in Norfolk. I got a few photos of the tiny birds in action.

In the lake in the grounds of the cottage were Mute Swan cygnets and Egyptian Goose goslings. The cygnets were very closely watched by the adults and any threats to the cygnets were scared away very quickly. Also on the lake were Tufted Ducks and Mallards. The Egyptian Geese were often seen sat on the edge of the lake in the sun. The goslings were still quite small and were seen huddled together looking like a pile of feathers.

My highlight bird-wise in the grounds has to be the Barn and Tawny Owls that were seen flying around in the evening. A few evenings during the week, we walked to the barn near the lake to watch the Barn Owls. I think the Barn Owl must be roosting in the barn at the moment. We have seen it come out of the barn in the evening to hunt over the surrounding fields. I don't think they have young yet as they didn't return to the barn with any food.

Barn Owls are such incredible creatures and it was fantastic to see such good views of them as they hunted silently in the dark. We only saw the Tawny Owl once, but heard it much more often. They could well be roosting or nesting nearby too. Also seen near the barn were bats in large numbers. We also saw a Treecreeper one evening just as it was going dark on a tree near the barn.

Away from the cottage, we saw plenty of other birds. National Trust properties often have gardens that are fantastic for birds. We went to Felbrigg Hall, a National Trust property near the cottage. Click here for the link to the website. As I was looking around the gardens, I came across a House Sparrow terrace nestbox in use by a Great Tit. It was seen bringing food into one of the holes.

A Chaffinch was seen singing on a tree.

And Jackdaws were seen at another NT property, Blickling Hall. Click here for more information on the property.

Many other birds were seen on various walks throughout the week. On the beach near a town called Sheringham, Little Tern were seen at the shore. I had to check the bird book to make sure they weren't Common or Sandwich Tern. They certainly were little and were struggling to fly against the wind. Just slightly further along the coast near some cliffs, I saw a species of pipit. This bird, I was unable to identify even with the bird book. I am guessing it was either a Rock Pipit, or more likely due to its brighter outer tail feathers, a Meadow Pipit.

Also seen in Sheringham were Starling:

And finally, on a sunny walk in the countryside, a female sparrow on the roof of a house. It's great to see the declining House Sparrow in its well-known habitat.


Other bird highlights were: Nuthatch, Marsh Harrier (seen at Blakeney Point), Reed Bunting, Whitethroat, Meadow Pipit, Yellowhammer, Chiffchaff, Cuckoo and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Blimey, isn't it amazing what you can see in a week!

Finally this posting comes to an end. I did chatter a bit didn't I?