Blue Tit visits again

A Blue Tit entered the camera nestbox again at the start of the month and the visits have been very regular. This is a great sign for the spring ahead, and hopefully the visits will continue.



Video taken in my camera nestbox on 1-02-09

Its not just grass...

...Its Bishop's garden wildlife grass! People quite often stereotypically think that grass is not a particularly interesting feature in the garden, but as a wildlife gardener, I think it is important that we show interest in our green weeds. The photos for this posting were taken just after the snow, which reminds me just how long ago I did my last posting. This is because I have more exams this march and have been concentrating on this.

The day in which I went out to take the photos for this post was beautiful; sunny and relatively warm for the middle of winter. As we as a family aren't particularly good at regularly weeding the garden, we get all sorts of grasses come up. As we are used to these, I thought I would "celebrate" their existance. You may think, "why on earth is Joe so interested in grass". Well, I asked myself this same question earlier, but hopefully this posting should be ok by the end :-)

Ok, first up, as I was looking around the garden, the most obvious form of the green stuff is on our lawns. While we take this for granted, just imagine what our gardens would look like without it. More to the point, just think that almost every garden in the country has some form of grass. Grass is great for animals too-especially if you grow it long. But mammals like Badgers are known for liking lawns (or is this just me?) as long as they are near some form of suitable woodland habitat. Admittedly the lawn in our garden isn't always overgrown... especially with 2 grazing pet rabbits!



In my wildlife patch, there are some more interesting grasses than the one above that are even better for wildlife. The long pale grasses provide great cover for reptiles such as lizards. Again, they are possibly not the most beautiful features in a garden, but they do give it a bit of character. Just think about what you are helping when you leave a space of grass to go a bit overgrown-you will be amazed. An example of this is in the photo below.

With Blue Tits showing great interest in our camera nestbox at the moment, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the importance of moss in gardens. Birds really need this material in order to build their nests. We have some of this in our garden, but because we don't have a particularly damp area in the garden, we don't tend to get much of it. The stuff in the photo below was found near my Dad's veg plot. I think it also looks great in a garden.

By the way, I have seen some more action in our camera nestbox and the videos have been uploaded to my camera nestbox blog, so they are there if you would like to have a look:
Click here for camera nestbox blog

All photos taken in my garden earlier this month.

The Robin has landed

I have recently been putting out live foods for the birds, in the hope that they get used to their location before they get fed to chicks in the nesting season. Well, thats the plan anyway. The Robins have already found the feeding bowl hanging in a shrub near the feeders. They seem to be the only bird eating them though, so I hope the others find them too. There were plenty of other birds visiting yesterday, which I have also included in this posting.

As I post this, our garden is covered in snow. My school has been closed both yesterday and today. I actually took the photos for this post on Sunday. I would have posted this then but I lost my USB camera cable. Luckily I have found it now and can view my pictures properly. I think it is important that we put out bird food - especially fat products out at this time of year to make sure the birds get all the energy they need to survive the cold.

As well as seeing some of the more familiar birds in our garden I am also starting to see some birds return to our garden in this cold weather. The Blackbird, surprisingly hasn't been as frequent as usual over the last couple of months, although they are now visiting our garden all the time. They mostly like the fat products I put out for them, and the one in the picture below is right next to the fat block. I hope to see them more and more in the future.

Some of the people who have commented on my Big Garden Birdwatch have mentioned my sighting of the Song Thrush. I am happy to say that it has returned and I saw it again today. They don't seem to like the bird table as much as the Blackbirds, but seem to pick up fallen seeds from the feeders. They are definitely ground feeding birds and are also turning over leaves to look for insects at the end of our garden.

The Greenfinch returned just in time for the Big Garden Birdwatch too, and has been visiting more frequently recently. I saw 3 of them together on Sunday and the one in the picture below is just one of them. They like the sunflower hearts more than the seed mixes, so I am putting both seeds out at the moment. As soon as the sunflower hearts are gone, they disappear from the garden. The Goldfinches and Chaffinches are visiting frequently as usual. We seem to have a very brightly coloured male chaffinch in the garden at the moment, nearly in its breeding plumage.

I wonder if the Blue Tit in the photo below is the same one which has been visiting our camera nestbox. Looking back at the videos, I must say that they look very similar, especially the colouring. I have another Blue Tit nestbox visit to post about soon. The frequent visits are very promising for the nesting season ahead. I am not sure if both the male and female Blue Tits have visited yet, or if there is only one taking a look around. There certainly hasn't been 2 in the box at the same time yet. I will keep my eyes peeled

All photos taken in my garden on Sunday 1st February