Starlings and toads

I sometimes get frogs and toads in the garden. I have a stream at the bottom, but there's 2m of gabion wall then the garden slopes up, so they really have a slog to get up.


This was one fat ugly toad. MrJoo wanted to lick him, but he was under strict instructions NO







I'm not sure if this is a juvenile siskin. It didn't quite look as familiar as a female siskin. Certainly no sign of yellow around it's neck


















I have had a lot of starling activity these last few days. They hare munching through the fat candles like fun. They work in pairs, one will be on the candle, the other below collecting the bits the top one drops. They will pick as much as they can up win their beaks and then fly off to their nests.





A fab action shot


It's impressive how many jackdaws I have seen since I IDed them

Last weekend outside

Some of the birds are happy for me to be out and about in the garden with them. The best was the siskin. This pic has no zoom on it. I was standing ever so still less than 6 foot from it. I stepped closer and he moved to the other branch and "shrieked" at me until I stepped back.




The bullfinch was a little more nervous but tolerated me


The nuthatch was happy flitting back and fore. He likes the new feeder the most. He has the most gorgeous eyes of any bird.

Just a little peek

The lady blackbird has such great colours

The coal tit likes the fat (and doing acrobatics)

Someone didn't like the rain hahaha.

Spring Equinox

The warmest day of the year so far. The car said it was 18 degrees. Very nice.
I have seen a pair of gold crests in the garden most days this week. They even came and fluttered about while I was in the garden stocking up the fat feeders.


The siskin numbers are very low now. I'm not sure there are half a dozen at any one time. Perhaps they have moved on, or someone else is feeding them good stuff.


This starling was sitting on next door's gutter most mornings. I thought he was a (big, fat) baby who wanted to join in with the other ones, as he would just sit there, cawing to them and shrugging his wings. But then he'd fly over to this telegraph pole and just sit there until he went back to the gutter. I'm sure his nest is there. Next door must have a good half dozen nests in his eaves and gutters.


I'm getting the jackdaws on my lawn more and more now.


The dunnock is usually seen on the other (out of sight) side of the garden, but he came to by the window today.

I got some lovely pics of a Mrs Blackbird.

Welcome visitors

Some pics of more welcome visitors to my garden
There were 2 nuthatches but wouldn't pose together.


And I got a pic of mrs blackcap, albeit in the distance


And I am sad to report that I came home to 2 dead male siskins this week. I think they may have smashed into the window :(
I have now moved the feeders down, so there is hopefully less chance of a repeat.

A lady comes to the garden

There was a new looking bird on the bird table. I couldn't get an angle to check out the head, but it seemed a little bit like a robin, but I knew it wasn't as I blinked and the robins usually get scared and fly off. It was there for ages. I'm not sure what it was eating as there's barely anything left.



I had a thought and when she did move off, I spotted it was a female blackcap. Wow. I'd seen the male mainly over the other side of the garden, but it was the first time I'd seen her. She came back again. To exactly the same spot.


The jackdaws have taken a fancy to the fat cake down the bottom of the garden. They are not too good at hanging on though. But they do have a good go.


And of course, the ever present siskins.

I don't know what he was spitting out, though.

Bouncing Blackbirds

Now I always thought that blackbirds were ground feeders as they only seemed to be on the ground under the tree nearest the house.
But recently I put this fat cake down the far corner of the garden and it seems to be popular with some birds.
Yesterday I saw a blackbird eyeing it up from underneath it. I saw him flying up and it looked like he was trying to land on the cage to eat but was missing every time. I wondered why he didn't approach from above like the other one, but on looking more closely through the binoculars, I could see that he was flying up to the base, taking a bite, then landing to swallow it. He didn't have a 100% success rate though.



You can just see the blur of him on this one


Later on I saw a female blackbird. She'd land on the cage, but because the cake was so small, it was difficult for her to reach down to bite it. I swapped it for a new cake, so she should get on better tomorrow.


My siskin numbers seem to have gone down recently, I've not been getting anywhere near the 20 birds I got recently. The starling numbers have gone up again after their cold weather dip.


I have a new bird sighting (although I think I saw him before but not since - until now). A wren. They have lovely eyebrows, haha.


My garden was quiet so I decided to spy on next door's hedge. There were two brown birds on the nut feeder there and I wondered if they were sparrows as I was sure they weren't dunnocks as I thought dunnocks were ground feeders. I checked my books and I was positive they weren't sparrows and when they sat on the branch in between stuffing their beaks I could see that they were actually dunnocks. I'm sure I'd only seen the one in my garden. Perhaps love is in the air.
Talking of "love in the air", the crows have been pairing up recently. It's lovely seeing them sat in pairs in the big tree.

We tidyied next door's garden today. Found a few big worms that I put on the bird table. I don't know if they got eaten by birds or leaped to relative safety, but they were soon gone.

The days are getting longer and it means I get a quick birdie fix in the mornings. I usually see the blackbirds and siskins. Various tits flit in and out but don't loiter. I've seen the pair of nuthatches a bit more often, but I haven't seen the tree creeper for a while. I have cut back quite a bit, so am wondering if that has made any difference. The siskins are eating more and more niger seeds, but I haven't seen them in their previously high numbers. I think that since I have let the feeder empty quite a bit so that they were forced to eat from the tray, they seem to be happy to eat from the tray anyway. Means less waste for me.
The starlings have been congregating on the top of the big trees. I counted over 20.

Sometimes the birds can stick their noses up at this mix and sometimes it just goes.