New Old Visitors

Have been in the new house for a couple of weeks now & I'm still trying to get used to the back garden.  It's quite strange that I get excited when a Coal Tit visits the feeder when they were the most common bird at the last house! 

We had 2 Blue Tits flitting in and out of the shrubs yesterday & I couldn't stop smiling!  Its as though I'm rediscovering all the birds I took for granted at the last place.

I suppose at the moment the feeder is quite hidden.  I can hear Goldfinches in the vicinity and Greenfinches keep passing overhead but none have landed yet!

I have ordered a load of new feeders online which should be with us next week, so hopefully any birds flying over will see all the culinary delights we have on offer!

We get the House Sparrows every day and the Starlings always come down for a bit of a nosy.

You looking at me?

However there's one bird that I'm missing!

The Robin! I thought every garden had one - so where's ours?  I've only heard him sing once and that's it. It's quite strange not to have one wake you up at 5.30am claiming his territory!

And I would've thought the gardens around here are ideal for the little scamp but I've still yet to see one!

We're planning on doing a little digging this weekend though so if there is one around then I'm sure he'll appear as soon as the spade hits the soil ;-)

New Home!

We have finally moved into our new house, after just over a week of packing, cleaning, working, unpacking, more cleaning - I've come to the conclusion I hate moving!

The new home is lovely and the back garden is fantastic!  Its quite a mature garden with lots of shrubs & bushes.

It has a narrow path leading you all the way around the grass to the back of the garden through more bushes and ends up at a shed which is covered in ivy!
I would like to say it's a haven for birds but we've had 2 different cats hiding in the garden so far :-(

We have got our priorities right though, and after an hour of being in the house on the first day, we decided unpacking can wait - the feeders must go up in the garden first!

So far, we've put up the coconut, seed feeder and the house.  

 These are all just in temporary positions until we get sorted.

 

After just 4 days, the House Sparrows have found the house!

The Starlings have discovered the coconut!

A couple of Coal Tits have been helping themselves to the Sunflower Seeds, Blackbirds have been rummaging around in the tree bark under the shrubs and a Dunnock has been underneath the seed house picking up any bits that the Sparrows throw off.

We've also put up a nest box at the side of the shed in the hope that a Robin might take an interest (especially with all the cover there is!)

I'd forgotten how noisy Starlings & Sparrows can be having not had them in the garden for a year - I have actually missed them!  Hopefully, once more feeders and a bath have been put in the garden, there'll be plenty of photos to be taken!

Don't you just love Dads!

The first text I got off my Mum this morning told me that my Dad had seen his first ever Woodpecker! It was the local Green Woodpecker feeding on the fat square in their garden first thing.

This made me smile as my dad is in his 70's and never really been into the whole nature / wildlife thing.
What made me laugh out loud was the fact he thought it was a Parrot! :-)
Bless him!
Have to say I'm jealous though, as we never got them (Woodpeckers or Parrots) whilst I was living at home!

Anyway, back to my garden and I'm pleased to say we now have a pair of Siskins regularly feeding on the nuts.

Male Siskin

Pair of Siskins (you can just make out the female at the bottom)

They seem to arrive later on in the afternoon, as though they're dropping in on their way home.
The large flock of Long Tailed Tits seem to have diminished slightly and we now only have 2 that come every day, obviously they've started to pair up now.

Hello!

The Chaffinches have now noticed the Sunflower Seeds, which is bad news for the Coal Tits as they're chasing everything off that ventures near the feeder! I was thinking I might alternate layers of normal seed in with the sunflowers just to see what else it will attract.

Chaffinches hogging the Sunflower Seeds

Coal Tit before being chased off by the Chaffinches!

The Lesser Redpoll hasn't returned yet but I'm still watching out for it every day, it may return with the Siskins again, you never know!

I also noticed the Rat has a partner so I'm assuming somewhere in the wood out the back may be a whole load of baby rats running around! As long as they stay out there & not inside then they're okay.

There's a Brown Bird in the Ring......

Tra la la la la......

Not much of the suet ring left now and most of the birds that come into our garden have made the most of it!

It's only taken a week for all the suet to just about disappear & I don't think the squirrel is to blame this time - I think the birds actually got chance to eat it all for themselves!

It wasn't me!

I also bought another new feeder for the Sunflower Seeds, hopefully this one is a bit more squirrel proof than the last one.
It didn't take long for the birds to get accustomed to it!

Winter Wonderland

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

(Sorry it's a bit belated!)

We awoke yesterday morning to a winter wonderland and a menagerie of feathered friends!

What a nice way to start 2010!

We took a walk to our local woods (Knocksink Woods) which was covered in snow - there is something quite magical about snow, it makes you more aware of the landscape, especially when there's nobody else around.

The small pond was nicely frozen ...

We saw quite a lot of deer tracks going down to the rivers edge, unfortunately we didn't see any deer though.

We also saw some other tracks which we have no idea who they belong to. Again these were going down to the waters edge and we only saw one set of them.

If anyone has an idea of what they are, I would be grateful.

Back home and the garden was still just as busy with Blackbirds, Magpies, the usual array of Tits (including Long Tailed I'm happy to say!),

Dunnocks, Chaffinches, Robins ...... even the Bullfinch edged a bit closer ... though still not close enough for a decent photo!

And we had another new visitor who was taking an interest in the chopped apple.......

A Blackcap!

We even had 3 Greenfinch land on the nut feeder briefly, before being chased off by the Robin.

All in all it was a very good day for garden birds, I'm hoping this is a sign of things to come!

Observations

Snow hasn't reached our neck of the woods yet but it has been bitterly cold today. The sunflower seeds have been going down at an alarming rate with birds taking a seed out literally every other second.

This made us wonder.......just how many seeds are eaten every day?

And how much is it costing us to replenish the stock?

So, we decided to carry out a little experiment, the following is an approximation and figures are generally rounded up where applicable:-

Coal Tits observed in two 1-hour periods during the day, both AM and PM visiting the sunflower seed feeder giving the average as follows:-

Approx 225 seeds (weighing 15g - yep we weighed them!) were taken per hour x 8 hours = 1800 seeds per day.

Average 8 hour day x 15g = 120g of seed taken per day

120g per day x 365 days = 44kg of seed taken per year (approx)

A 3kg bag of seed costs €10 x 15 bags per year = €150 yearly cost
------------------------------------------------------------------------
225 seeds = 15g

1kg contains approx 67 x 15g servings

225 seeds x 67 = 15,075 seeds per 1kg

15,075 x 44kg yearly consumption = 663,300 seeds per year

Only 10 birds (4 Coal Tits, 4 Blue Tits & 2 Great Tits) are currently visiting out sunflower seed feeder which equates to 66,330 seeds per bird per year!

Like I mentioned before these are approximations and obviously during winter the birds visit the feeder a lot more than summer months but then they would also have chicks to feed in the summer so I think it would probably average itself out.

Approx €150 spent per year just on sunflower seeds, not taking into account the peanuts, fat balls, fat squares, normal bird seed, meal worms, apples, raisins...........etc etc.

No wonder I'm always skint!

Brrrrrrrr!

There is a definite wintry chill in the air now! Judging by how busy the feeders are I would say the birds are feeling it too! Its been non-stop activity all weekend. I'm thinking of buying extra feeders to cope with them all!

The Chaffinches have now taken to clinging onto the peanut feeder which isn't pleasing the various Coal/Blue/Great Tits at all.

So far over the weekend the sunflower seed feeder (which slots on top of the pole) has been found on the ground twice! I found out why this morning when I watched a Rook trying to eat the seeds from the small portholes then fly off with such vigour that the thing dropped to the floor - I didn't even know Rooks ate sunflower seeds!

Also had 2 Jackdaws clinging clumsily on to the fat ball feeder & the peanut holder this morning, whilst the smaller birds watched from the sidelines, almost as though they were willing the Jackdaws to fall off!

The Long Tailed Tits are becoming regular visitors now (which I'm very happy about!), and there were 2 Greenfinches in the ferns earlier today. I even spotted the Bullfinch picking the last of the berries - this one was definitely a male judging by the bright red front!

No photos today, unfortunately, but hopefully will post a short video later in the week showing all of this activity (if I can work out how to use the thing!)

Dry Spell

We actually had a bit of a dry spell this afternoon and the birds certainly made the most of it! At one time I counted 4 Blue Tits, 4 Coal Tits, 2 Great Tits, 1 Robin, 1 Long Tailed Tit, 7 Chaffinches and 1 Greenfinch all darting to the seed tray and feeders. The Great Tits were chasing the Blue Tits off the nuts, the Blue Tits were chasing the Coal Tits off the fat square and the Coal Tits were chasing anything that moved!

Great Tit

Long Tailed Tit

Robin

I spotted this fungi growing out of a branch high up the old Oak tree, I've no idea what it is but I thought it looked cute (if fungi can ever be described as cute?!)

Dinnertime!

When I say "dinner", I actually mean "all day" buffet! The garden has been a hive of activity this weekend. I was going to call this post "Tits Galore", but I thought better of it :-)
I've had Great Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Chaffinches, Magpies, Dunnocks, Robin, Wren, even the Long Tailed Tit paid a fleeting visit (of course my camera was nowhere near me!) and the Bullfinch has been lurking in the background.

I love this time of year!

Told You!

I knew today was going to be good.............

Faithful Coal Tit.......

Faithful Robin.......

........And 2 new visitors - an adult & a juvenile (I think) Greenfinch, first time seen in our garden!