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.

Diseased Chaffinch?

We have a flock of around 7 Chaffinches who come into our garden every day, the other week I noticed one of the females had something wrong with her foot. I thought it was a clump of mud & seed stuck around her claws but after trying to focus on it (unsuccessfully), I realised there were lots of what appear to be little cysts.
Does anybody know what has caused this?

She wouldn't stand still long enough for a clear shot!

She seems to be well & has no difficulty keeping with the flock & feeding, I'm just curious to know what this is & whether it would be contagious to the other birds?


On a brighter note we finally had our first Siskin in the garden today - a female all by herself. I did scan the surrounding trees/scrub but couldn't see any more of them.

The rat was also very active today and kept scurrying across to the crumbs of stale cake!

And of course, the Robin not wanting to be left out of the photos!

Ratty

Discovered another visitor to our garden today...... a small rat!

I know I shouldn't really encourage him (or her?) but I throw food out all the time in the back whether its cheese, seed or nuts and I don't mind who eats it... rat, mouse, birds, badger or fox!

The way I see it is the woodland out the back of our house was there before our house was built, so in theory we're trespassing on the rat's property!

And as long as there's plenty of food outside, it means it won't want to come inside! The photos aren't the best but the light was really gloomy (raining again!) so it was the best I could do!

....... and I'm a sucker for a cute face! :-)