April

Some of today's birdies:
Wood pigeons

A lovely chaffinch

Who has decided he likes my seed feeder

Starlings are lovely looking birdies

And jackdaws have the look of evil about them haha

Managed to tempt the greenfinch to the close side of the garden

The buds are starting to, well, bud, I suppose.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Today was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Since I normally get a decent amount of birds first thing, my hour was 9:35 to 10:35. (I wasn’t quite ready for 9:30 but that worked out well
My count
1 dunnock
4 starlings (quiet today)
11 siskins
4 blackbirds (although I saw 3 male and 2 female, there were only 4 at one time)
4 crows
1 blue tit
1 coal tit
1 great tit
5 chaffinches
4 goldfinches
1 magpie
2 wood pigeons
2 collared doves
1 gold crest
1 jay (woohoo, he was down the bottom of the garden for a while and I have a few fuzzy photos)
1 woodpecker (he returned, yippee - although I scared him off lifting my camera)
and with 2 minutes to spare
1 robin (I thought he wasn't going to turn up today.

noticably missing were :- treee creeper, nuthatch, long tailed tits.
I'd just finished my count, but there were lots of birds about when something seriously spooked everything and they all shot off. One poor siskin went the wrong way and splatted into my window. I rushed out in case it was the cat who had spooked them and to protect him, lifted him up using kitchen towels and put him the right way up, safe near the kitchen door (obviously I went back inside for my camera). I think the only damage was a bit of blood in his beak area. He flew off safely.

Later on in the afternoon I saw the tree creeper, 5 long tailed tits and 2 nuthatches. I think these are more late in the day birds rather than morning birds.

Some photos I took today:

Long tailed tit - cute as ever


Crows. I think they were having a romantic foursome!!!

This one was happy sat on next door's aerial

Until he flew off

Mr siskin after he'd gone splat. There was a bit of blood on the one kitchen towel I used to collect him, I think it was from his beak.

I think the siskins are the most common birds in my garden now.


The rear of a fat wood pigeon

And the nice side of a collared dove

Woohoo, I snapped the jay (albeit badly)

In all, a great morning counting. And also for the rest of the day.

New Visitors

I had a new visitor today, and with the help of the lovely people at the GBS forum, I've identified it as a wren. I thought it was one due to it's tail, but it seemed to be very brown rather than the speckly borwn in all my books.

I also spotted my first wood pigeon. I assume they have been here for ever since I often heard them, but it's the first time I've noticed him and, boy, is he a fat bird. (Rubbish pic, I know)

And I also needed help in double checking that this is a crow.

Haha, I snapped the robin before he saw me and flew off

I took my 2 main feeders down to clean and put them back up the other way round. I'd also moved the tray onto the nyger feeder. However, the siskins and goldfinches have stayed away from it. First off, I thought that it was because it was too near the window, but when I swapped them around, they still didn't want to use the nyger feeder. If none has gone by tomorrow, I shall have to take the tray off. I have ordered a taller nyger feeder and tray, so perhaps they'll not mind that.

The collard dove was dive bombing onto the grass and scattering the smaller birds.

And I snapped this nice shot of a coal tit.