Garden Birdwatch

DH is doing it right now.
We have put out some raw chicken hoping to encourage the red kites who sometimes come but no luck so far.

Mainly blue tits so far -very common.

I wasn't going to bother as it was tipping it down but now its stopped I think I'll take a look , usual tits and doves at the moment..

I get fed up of doing this when all I can report are blue tits, the robin, the wren, gold finches, starlings and pigeons. If we are not doing bird watch we get coal tits, long tail tits, chaffinches, 2 bull finches, a tree creeper, a nuthatch, a kestrel and, once, a heron!

The whole point of the birdwatch is to see how the ordinary garden birds are doing.

Yesterday morning, I only had a solitary dunnock for the hour.
Today, I had three house sparrows, a blackbird, a robin, a woodpigeon and the dunnock.
The difference was the wind.

I did mine yesterday with a good selection of the usual. No odd exotics sadly.

N.B Still hoping for goldfinches as have put out Niger seeds in the appropriate feeder following last week's advice on the other thread. None so far.

We haven't done it this year. I really don't know why either! I usually do it every year. I haven't seen the magazine from the RSPB lately though, so perhaps DH hasn't renewed our subscription.

I would settle for a pigeon- zilch here.

Just about to start as the rain has finally stopped. We've loaded the feeders and hoping our resident kestrel puts in an appearance.

I always have niger seeds, Lully, but haven't had any goldfinches for weeks. I think they must have all been blown away. We have had 40-70 mph winds here for a couple of days, until today.

Still time to do it, hilda.

Our goldfinches ignore the niger seeds totally.

I did it yesterday, it was quite snowy here. Wood pigeons, collared doves (spell checker changed that to collated, aptly), starlings, sparrows, pair of blackbirds, coal tit, blue tit and a robin. Not bad.

Well, not as good as previous years.
We had five minutes of fervent feeding by pigeons, starlings and house sparrows and 55mins where we did have a single bird
No wind or rain to blame either.

Kittylester you're so lucky to have such a selection .

We get the odd sparrow coughing , and one footed pigeons !!

Though we do have our semi tame robin family who seem to come back year after year and give us huge entertainment.

didn't not did

Most of the niger seeds appear to end up on the lawn, which is good because they grow quickly and fill in the patches. I have been known to sweep them into the bare patches where I need them.

Just done it. Had nothing then a mad rush/ feeding frenzy. Loads of long tailed tits,some coal tits as well as the usual. I really hoped our resident pheasant would stroll in . The female bullfinch popped in and a tree creeper and the juvenile woodpecker. One year we all sat watching just about nothing for an hour. I feel for you

We had a good selection this year. Much better than last year. The kestrel didn't arrive though nor did the woodpecker.

I did my birdwatching and enjoyed it.

I had a depressing phone call last week. It was a very friendly, yet very highly scripted one. The bottom line seemed to be they wanted my money for the RSPB. She phoned off when she realised I didn't want to subscribe.......or so it seemed.

My garden is packed full of fledgling starlings and a few baby sparrows all making a huge din as their parents fly around collecting food.

The seagull is siting on her nest watching proceedings.

I saw a large black bird, maybe a crow family chase a hawk away. They flew so high and the crow didn't give up. Fascinating.pop

We often see rooks mobbing buzzards round here - the buzzards always seem to give up first! As you say, these ariel dogfights are fascinating to see, lully!

Rooks and Crows will attack birds of prey mercilessly. I suspect they fear for their eggs/young.