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!

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 :)

What's caught my eye today?

Its been a while since I posted about our garden's plants, so I thought I would post about what plants have been catching my eye over the last week or so. And for my 100th posting today, I will start with some lilies which have just flowered in our pond...

They really have been adding some colour to our garden at this time of year. Most of our other plants have already flowered and are now "closing down" for the autumn and winter ahead. In the bottom right photo in the montage above, you will notice that some of the flowers are still yet to appear. Hopefully, the frost which we apparently could be getting tonight will not damage these lilies or anything else which happens to be flowering at the moment.

I did notice that many of our plants are losing their leaves now, especially our Apricot Tree. Just next to our pond, we have a little Blueberry plant, and the leaves from this have turned a brilliant purple-red colour. Presumably, it won't be long until our blackcurrant bushes lose their leaves too. Notice the lonely Blueberry still left on the plant!

The birds are still feeding pretty frantically, and I have been very happy to see a Goldcrest again twice, which we last saw earlier in the year. I haven't been lucky enough to get a photo of it yet, although it has allowed me to get very close. Its very difficult to follow the tiny bird as it flits through the needles of the conifer. Another small bird which has been visiting again recently is the Long-Tailed Tit, which we see more and more of nowadays.

As usual, the LTT's visit with the Blue and Great Tits, and just recently, we have also seen the return of the Coal Tit to our garden. Today, I saw a Blue Tit on our fat block feeder by the Apricot Tree. I haven't seen any more visitors inside our camera nest box today, although we have been hearing the birds tapping at the entrance hole and calling to one another.

We have also had groups of around 9-10 Goldfinches visiting our feeders too. When I am outside though, they tend to gather on a nearby tree, waiting for me to go back inside before coming in to feed at our feeders.

Hopefully, I will be seeing more of the same as the week goes on. Maybe we will even get a bird roosting in our camera nest box, should the temperature get cold enough. I wonder what your gardens are like at this early stage in autumn. Have a great week :)

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.

Evening finches

When I get home from school, I sometimes hear the somewhat irritating news that it is my turn to clean our 2 rabbit's hutch out. Its irritating until the moment I open the back door to the sight of our garden birds enjoying some evening sunshine on our bird feeders! Yesterday was no exception and some of the birds seemed pretty desperate to stock up on those sunflower hearts. Maybe the midday sun is unbearable for our finches...

I usually bring out my camera whilst I am out with the rabbits, so that I can take a photo of anything that arrives whilst I am out there. It seems to be the various finches that like to feed at this time. The bossy Greenfinch in the photo below was daring enough to feed just a couple of metres away from me- although it struggled to find food in that near empty bird feeder. Those sunflower hearts are just too good to resist for the Greenfinches!

Next up on the bird feeder queue was the Goldfinch (pictured below). They are a little bit more shy than the Greenfinches and tend to perch on the shrubs of next-doors garden before feeding on our nyjer seed feeder. I haven't posted photos of this colourful bird in a while, so I was glad to get a shot of one. The thing I love most about the Goldfinches is that fantastic song they produce when in small groups. They have got to be one of the reasons why it is worth feeding garden birds.

And last, but by no means least is the female Chaffinch in the photo below. It was still quite bright outside when I took the photo, but they are so much harder to photograph than the Greenfinches and Goldfinches. Chaffinch numbers have been very high throughout this month which is why they have featured in many of my previous posts. It was nice to capture the female this time rather than the very bright males.

I thought in the last part of this posting, I would share a video that I meant to show you at least a week ago, but never got around to doing it. In case you didn't know, we have Blue Tits nesting in a nestbox on our conservatory at the moment, and we think that a female could currently be incubating eggs. One of the Blue Tit parents is spending long periods of time in the nestbox at the moment, whilst our male seems to check on her and feed her every now and then. Because this isn't a camera nestbox, it's impossible to be sure, but this is what we think is happening.

The video below shows a very cautious Blue Tit (we think it is the male after ID checking) on the hole of the nestbox. He is seen looking around to make sure the coast is clear to enter the nestbox. Maybe it is me that he has seen, but I thought I was quite well hidden in our office building with my tripod. Ah, well I managed to capture Mr Blue Tit for around 2 minutes before he flew off.



My next posting definitely will include the blossom I wanted to show you. I thought I would show the flower stages of the blossom, so taking the photos has taken a little longer than expected. Still, the post should be all set to go tomorrow, or the day after that. But for now, enjoy your evening finches.

Arty by accident

I am definitely not talking about my art skills in terms of painting and drawing in the title of this post- I dropped art at GCSE level for a reason! In fact, I am talking about taking photos of birds... Isn't it funny when a photo doesn't turn out how you expect it to, yet still looks good in a different way. This happened on many occasions yesterday and I thought I could base a posting on it. I found that it most often occurs that you get a strange but arty photo when you are trying to be creative with the camera. The light was fantastic yesterday, so I took photo after photo in the evening. I was bound to get a few unusual shots from the 60 odd that I took, and here they are...

The first picture below is of a Wood Pigeon in flight. Would you have guessed it- probably not, but thats just what I think makes it an interesting photo. I was attempting to get a photo of it in flight, but the shutter speed on my camera is quite slow on automatic mode, so it blurred the wings of the bird. I was actually trying to take the picture so that the pigeon was in the middle of the shot, but by accident, it ended up in the bottom left of the photo. I was surprised with the good effect.

Again, have a guess what bird is in the photo below. In fact, how about I don't tell you what it is... it makes the photo even more intriguing. Have a guess if you like as to what bird it is. I bet some of you keen birdwatchers know birds by their shape. As a clue, this is a common garden bird which likes to feed on sunflower hearts. With the fading evening light, the birds were silhouetted against the sunset, and created a great effect. Again, completely by accident, but an effective shot, if I do say so myself.


You should be able to make out the bird in the photograph below. It isn't the same bird as the one in the photo above, by the way! The Goldfinch often visits quite late into the evening, and even in the fading light, it is still easy to make out the bright colours of the bird. Not so much of a silhouette shot, but similar to the photo above. Also, not quite as shy as the more bossy Greenfinch, so easier to photograph.

So, all in all, I had great fun taking these weird shots by accident. Why not have a go yourself!

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.

Wanted!

Our garden is home to quite a wide variety of garden birds plus a few unexpected woodland and countryside birds. However, I always feel I can attract more. I put out a wide variety of food too, which helps. Goldfinches were a species which didn't used to visit our garden until a couple of years ago. While these birds are very common, quite tame and easy to see and hear, they are very fussy eaters as far as seeds go.

We used to just feed whole black sunflower seeds and peanuts. At this point we had not seen or heard Goldfinches in our garden. It was only when we started to feed nyjer seeds and sunflower hearts that the Goldfinches came. At the time seeing the first Goldfinch in our garden was very exciting but now they are just as common as other birds and we take the presence for granted. I would like to get the same exciting feeling by attracting other birds, but I need help! The pictures below show a juvenile Goldfinch seen in our garden recently:

So, what are the birds that I aim to attract to my garden. Well, some of the less common and occasional visitors are: Bullfinches, Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Wrens, Goldcrests, Jays, Bramblings, Song Thrushes and Mistle Thrushes. These birds are all breif visitors, but I would like to attract some other birds too. One of the most common birds that has not been seen in my garden is the Nuthatch. Now I know for sure that a lot of people reading this will have seen one in their garden. I have seen one on holiday, but never at home.

These are colourful, small and acrobatic birds that I am sure are very entertaining to watch. But I am not sure how to attract them. I already put out peanuts, seeds of various types and fats. Does anybody know what else I could try feeding to attract them? The image below is from wikipedia. This must be a pet Nuthatch!

Another wanted bird in the garden is the Pied Wagtail. I have seen this bird countless times in car parks scavenging on food, but surprisingly this bird is not quite so common in gardens hence why I have never seen one. Not a particulary thrilling bird to watch, but important to feed nonetheless. I'm not sure if there is anything in particular that will attract these birds, but please comment if you can think of something. As far as I am aware they will not nest in nestboxes so I am not sure if there is an awful lot I can do for this bird. The picture below is again from wikipedia.

In fact this bird is probably one of the only ones that benefits from human activity, so it is maybe not essential that I feed these birds specifically apart from just to experience seeing it.

The Tree Sparrow is the bird I would like to see the most. Its close relative, the House Sparrow is recognised by birdwatchers all over the world, but the Tree Sparrow is a seemingly declining species. Its habitat is more in the countryside but is sometimes spotted in gardens too. I think its a real shame that this bird is struggling because it is one that would be fantastic to see alongside its common relative. It is more neat and tidy looking than the House Sparrow as shown in the photo on wikipedia. I have never even seen this bird even outside my garden so it is difficult to picture what the bird would act like.

The last bird on my list is not actually one bird. But it might as well be because it is often impossible to tell the two birds apart. They are the Marsh and Willow Tit. Again, I have never seen one of these properly in the wild, but I think I may have seen glimpses. They are a lot shyer than the more common Tits so it is not surprising that I have never seen one of these in my garden. While there is woodland near our house, their main habitat is probably more dense woodland.

I am guessing that if they visited feeding stations at all, they would take seeds but please correct me if I am wrong. This is probably one of those birds that has visited our garden before but hasn't been seen. It was very sad to hear that the numbers of Marsh Tits has decreased significantly over recent years. On wikipedia it says, "There has been a >60% decline in numbers in Britain between 1960 and 2000, with numbers down to 52,800 pairs". Now I know why I am unlikely to see them!

Now I have written all this I realise that my list is quite ambitious. If I don't see these birds in my garden (which is highly likely), I will hope to see them more when I am out elsewhere.

First 2 images were taken in my garden on 28-09-08. All others are from wikipedia.

A Jay today

Well actually I didn't see a Jay today as suggested in the title, but I wanted it to rhyme! I saw it on the day I got the footage of the squirrel. This is a new garden bird to me. In case you didn't know Jays are members of the crow family. They are much more shy and secretive than the more common Magpies and Carrion Crows we normally get in our garden. They are woodland birds really, so it was a pleasant surprise to see it fly into our tall conifer. Our conifers are very tall and the tops are often good perches for passing birds. Just last week a Sparrowhawk was perched there and flocks of Starlings visit too. But never a Jay.

It was a brief visit too. It was there less than a minute so no photos, I'm afraid. It was also a bit too far away for my camera to cope with. I have seen this bird before but I have to say that despite their colour, this bird can be very hard to spot. I was begging for it to fly down onto the bird table so that I could get some close-up pictures but I don't think it was convinced. I only saw it because I happened to be looking out of the window at the time when it came. What luck! Come to think of it, there are probably plenty of birds that pass by unnoticed...

I have seen plenty of other posts from other blogs on them too. If only my dad's binoculars were able to take photos. They are excellent and let in a lot of light, meaning that I saw the Jay in its full colours. They are unmistakable when you see them. The blue streak on their wings is the give-away for me. If you want to see a picture of one on wikipedia, click here. Also on wikipedia it mentions their ability to mimic other birds, which can make it very hard to distinguish its identity.

I thought this post would be a bit dry without any images, so I thought I would share some of my recent Goldfinch photos. Now, you may have noticed that quite a few of my posts are based on these birds. OK, hands up its because these birds are simply some of the easiest and most colourful birds that visit my garden. They are surprisingly tame compared with the Greenfinch and Chaffinch. They also spend more time at the feeders than quite a lot of our other garden birds. Its interesting to look at the behaviour of birds. For example over the years I have noticed that the Blue Tits will often take a seed and fly off into a bush with it to break it up. Unlike the Greenfinches, which are much less likely to give up their spot on the feeders.

Adult Goldfinch


The images below are juvenile Goldfinch ones. This one was actually feeding while I was doing something to my patch, and I was only a few metres away from it. This one even took a quick drink from the bird bath. Its a little disappointing I didn't get better ones but never mind. I am guessing that the young birds are less aware of the dangers in the garden. The adult Goldfinch (also pictured above) was a lot harder to capture.

Juvenile Goldfinch

All photos were taken in my garden on 21/09/08

Garden birds update

Its almost like a circus outside at the moment with the birds. We are getting large flocks of tits, especially Blue and Long-tailed. Yesterday, there were 7 Long-tailed tits, and 6 Blue Tits, along with 4 Greenfinches, 2 Goldfinches, 4 Chaffinches, 1 Goldcrest, 2 Great Tits, 2 Coal Tits, 2 Dunnocks, 2 Robins, and of course the usual pigeons, doves and magpies. They seem to fly from feeding station to feeding station, eating as much as they can. I think most of our birds have finished their moulting for the year, and the feeders are needing constant refills. I would really like to get a picture of the tiny visiting Goldcrest, but because the are so small, it means I have to try and get close to them. So I decided to stick to the more common birds this time! Fat is the best food to attract Long-tailed tits, and the one below is enjoying some of our fat block.

The quality of the video isn't as good as normal because it is taken through glass, and it was raining outside.

The Goldcrest that is visiting occaisionally at the moment is very shy and its difficult to get close up to them. They don't take food from the feeding stations, but they seem to like the conifer tree at the end of our garden. Its amazing to think how small the nest of this bird will be. I looked the Goldcrest up in a bird book, and it does say that they are likely to nest in conifer trees. Fingers crossed that we get them nesting in our garden. Talking of nests, I was planning to, at some point get a Camera Nestbox or Feeder cam. The trouble is that they are mostly quite expensive. Any suggestions?

Just a quick note on the weather. It has been awful here over the last week or so, making the return to school seem even more tedious. It has got to be something to do with global warming, because this isn't the way I normally remember summer!

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:

Goldfinch galore

Firstly, I would like to mention that I have been very busy recently, having fun getting this blog started for you to see, and so far, I am very pleased with how its going!

In the last week or so there has been a large group of visiting goldfinches. I have seen juveniles too, but was unable to get a picture of them. The juveniles are only briefly in the open, so it is difficult to capture them on camera. Unfortunately, we are just about to run out of nyjer seed (which goldfinches adore), right at the critical moment, so I may see an absence in them for a while. They are becoming a little interested in the ordinary seed mix though, so fingers crossed, they will stay a bit longer. Today, I saw 5 at one point, and below, are a few pictures and videos I managed to take. The video clips are quite short, because I am currently using the internal memory on my camera, and it is running out! Again, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.