Family Meeting

Don't you just love Spring?!  Our garden has all of a sudden become a focal point for families of Starlings & Sparrows.  I love the way the fledglings open their beaks & flap their wings whenever an adult bird is near - they don't care if it's their parent or not - it has food!!

We have this small family of Greenfinches down most evenings now, the young are so adorable, often sitting there for half an hour or more with the one sunflower seed trying to get to the middle! I suppose I should really start buying the sunflower hearts for them instead to make it a bit easier!

Also saw something really positive at the weekend - the Housemartins are back rebuilding their old nests at the side of our neighbour's house!  It seems to be taking them a while but fingers crossed we'll have young in a couple of months!  I've never seen so many Housemartins before swirling above the roofs and they're so vicious to each other! One could be clinging on to the wall and another will literally fly up and pull it off! I'm going to try and video them this weekend if the weather is okay (i.e. dry!)

Will also keep an eye out for other fledglings in our garden in between shooing next doors cats away!

Does anyone have  any tips for keeping cats out? So far we've come up with barbed wire and a gun! Don't think the neighbours would approve though!

Murphy's Law

Typical!

The week we're supposed to be moving out & I get a pair of gorgeous Greenfinches visiting the feeder!

I suppose that's what they call Murphy's Law over here!

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!

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?!)

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!