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!

Fledgling Starlings to come

Recently, we bought some live mealworms for the birds, thinking it would be helpful for any nesting birds to feed to their chicks. Well, we have certainly had a positive response from the local Starlings. They have been flying off with beakfulls of mealworms for a couple of weeks now. I think that there are at least 4 adult starlings flying off with food to feed chicks. With the frenzied feeding, I am sure it won't be long until we see some fledglings.

A while back, we got a couple of plastic green mealworm feeders with little covers and steep sides. Before this, we were always trying to find somewhere A) protected from the weather, and B) somewhere they couldn't simply crawl off. As a result, many of the mealworms we wasted. It seems that now, the problem has been solved and the mealworms have been disappearing fast.

The Starlings have been seen deliberately spilling the mealworms onto the lawn so that they can collect them more easily. The video below shows a Starling collecting some mealworms and flying off with them. Note how the Starling quickly flies off with the mealworms before the second starling is able to take any! I was so lucky with the way one Starling replaced the other when recording the video.



Another ineteresting sighting in the garden has been a juvenile Dunnock. I also managed to get a clip of this too, albeit a short one. After watching this clip a few times, I thought the juvenile Dunnock could in fact be a very scruffy adult Dunnock. See what you think. I must say though that the Dunnock does appear to beg for food from the parent. This "youngster" appears to be able to feed itself, so I don't think it is a recent fledgling.



Now, I also wanted to talk about a very strange encounter in the garden yesterday. In the late afternoon, I saw a small flock of Long-tailed Tits visit the garden. Fairly normal so far, then. But I then saw a pair of the little birds hanging around near our conservatory nestbox. To my surprise, they actually entered the nestbox for a short time. I have certainly not seen this kind of behaviour before from this bird, although I know that Long-tailed Tits are beginning to exploit food from a wider range of feeders. When you look at the list of birds which use an ordinary tit box, the Long-tailed Tit is not part of the list. It would be great if the little birds visited the box again at some point, and maybe even thought about a late nesting attempt there.

To finish off, below are a couple of pictures of Collared Doves seen in the garden recently They seem to have learned how to feed off our bird feeders now!

Hopefully I will see some more fluffy youngsters over the coming weeks.

Sunday morning birdwatch

This morning is very wet here in Bucks, so this morning's birdwatch was a little tricky. I did plan to do it yesterday, but I was both short of time and short of battery power in my camera. I was unable to take the film from the "birdwatch hut" as I now call it, because the rain was driving right into the window. This means the footage was taken from my bedroom (further from the feeders). There was also a problem with uploading one of the videos onto Blip, so I'm afraid that there is only one video so far. I will try to upload it later and update the post. This mornings videos will show some of our garden pests, as well as a few other visitors.

I find that most of the time, the birds I regard as pests tend to visit at the same time. The Grey Squirrel, Magpie and Collared Dove below all visited in the space of about 5 minutes. The Collared Dove was sat on the bird bath getting very wet in the proccess. It did eventually take a drink, and then flew off. The rain outside made the video quality decrease, as you will find with the Magpie clip. If you look carefully however, you will see that the Grey Squirrel actually scares off the Magpie (which doesn't happen very often). Please check back tomorrow for the video of them.

Quite a few finches visited this morning. I often find that in the wet weather, these birds can be the only ones to visit. The Greenfinches and Goldfinches used all 4 perches of the feeder as you will see in the video below. Again, the video isn't the best and the colours are quite washed out but it does give you an idea of how they feed together. The Goldfinch is personally one of my favourite birds, and even in the bad light this morning their colours are still very bright.



I wonder what the birds are doing in Shirls garden in Scotland. I hope she sees some more exotic birds than I saw this morning. Its interesting to compare photos and text about birds in different parts of the world. You would be surprised about just how different the sightings are. Just in case you didn't know, it was Feed the Birds Day yesterday and today, so get feeding! Also, there are plenty of events going on around the country that you can get involved in. I certainly made sure that the birds were well fed yesterday and today.

All videos were taken in my garden this morning.

Garden update

I'm glad I can now post something with some of my own images and videos. The feeders are quite busy at the moment, but larger birds such as Magpies and Wood Pigeons are taking over. The hanging bird table on our feeder pole, and the fat are particularly popular with the Magpies. They are also keen on the peanuts I left loose on the table. I have to admit that they are very entertaining to watch, but they are very intimidating to smaller birds, such as Blue Tits. When the large birds have gone, the smaller ones take advantage, and take as much food as quickly as possible. As I was outside, I noticed the return on the Starlings in our garden. They had a nibble at the fat balls before disappearing.

Male Greenfinch and female House Sparrow:

Young Robin: Collared Dove: Junenile Goldfinch: Starling:

Goldfinch:

Blackbird:

Magpie:

House Sparrow video:

Blue Tit and Coal Tit taking brief snack from feeders: