APRIL 2009 - Siskin & Goldfinch in the garden!!

Monday 27th, and in the heavy rain we had a visit from a SISKIN on the feeders. Melanie took some video of the bird on the niger feeder. The fact that the Siskin is eating from the niger is unusual...or is it? A Goldfinch also spent time before the Siskin on the niger feeder...only ONE again! The Goldfinch also tried a few other feeders out too!



But not content with visiting the feeders once, the SISKIN comes back this afternoon to the niger feeder! The bird was very accommodating. It even waited for me to return from a visit to town. Melanie again took this footage. But the Goldfinch didn't make a return visit!

APRIL 2009 - Sandra's Garden Birds!!

Monday 27th, a friend of ours, who lives about 200 yards away as the Crow flies, has sent us these photos of the birds in her garden. The garden gets visited by flocks of Goldfinches and Greenfinches at a time... and we get the odd solitary one! I believe that it is down to the type of trees that surround her street whereas our street has no trees and we only have conifers in the garden. The photo of the MISTLE THRUSH with the worms is, you'll agree, a very good image. She also managed to snap this Sparrowhawk female with a recent Wood Pigeon kill! Sandra gets such a wide diversity of birds, even a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER visited her garden last week!!!!

APRIL 2009 - Blackbird & Sparrows in the House & visit to Potteric Carr

Sunday 26th, we have located the second nest of the female Blackbird from Family 'Set-B' and it is in our garden...maybe about ten inches from her first nest! Well, she's going to stay close to where the food supply is and we are it! The back door has to stay shut when not feeding the birds as we have found...to our cost that the Blackbirds (female and male) along with House Sparrows, are coming into the kitchen in search of mealworms! In one instance this afternoon at 5:45pm, the female Blackbird must have sneaked into the kitchen, found there was no mealworms available and flew upstairs where she left little packages in the study. All this while we had visitors too! Anyway Melanie managed to open the window and out she flew...sorry no pictures are available! Five minutes later, she was at the back door for feeding!

The House Sparrows are also being very bold. They have started to come into the kitchen if the door is left adjar. While at Potteric Carr this afternoon, I received a phone call and it was my wife telling me that 3 Sparrows and the Blackbird female were stood on the kitchen floor waiting to be fed.

APRIL 2009 - Blackbirds feeding new family?

Saturday 25th, well what do ya know? The Blackbird adults of Family 'Set-B'....you remember them...we had two nests of Blackbirds in the garden and we labeled them Set-A' and 'Set-B'. Well, it seems that having fledged, originally what we think we 3 chicks, they are now collecting mealworms for the new family! As it turns out, this scenario has shown us some interesting Blackbird behaviour. At the beginning of the week, the adult male had the sole task of constantly feeding the two surviving fledglings, which are now as large as he is! Any way, he started bringing them to the back door for mealworms. At first they were a bit apprehensive as you would expect. Now the number of times that they would tun up for food would be six or seven a day! By last Wednesday, the fledglings were quite at ease with the situation and would accompany their parent, who would dutifully feed them with our mealworms. They became so used to the situation that both of them started feeding themselves from the back door. Whenever the door is open they were there. If the adult female was around, she would shoo them away and grab any mealworms for what we think must be a new batch of hatched chicks. She steadfastly refused to feed the fledglings!


Now as of yesterday, the male is refusing to feed the fledglings and is collecting mealworms with which he flies off in the same direction as the female. He will even go so far as to attack the fledglings if they try to steal a mealworm or two. So is this must be indicative of Blackbird behaviour, indeed other birds may behave the same to their offspring?

APRIL 2009 - St. Georges Church Mistle Thrushes.

Thursday 23rd, during the early evening in the grounds of St. Georges Church, on St. George's Day, I encountered a couple of Mistle Thrushes and about 2 dozen Goldfinches. Unfortunately I didn't get a footage or stills of the noisey Goldfinches but I did manage to capture some of the Thrushes! Quite exceptional, these birds!p>

Talking of Goldfiches, earlier in the day, Melanie my wife got this footage of a very rare event in our garden, of a Goldfinch on the niger feeder!

APRIL 2009 - Potteric Carr NR

Sunday 19th, went over to PCNR for the last 4 hours of daylight. Not an awful lot that I saw except for some notables on Huxter Well; Avocets, Little Ringed Plover and a couple of Redshanks along with a single Oystercatcher. No sign of the Wheatear or the Black-necked Grebes that I was looking for. But a pleasant early evening! This image of the Oystercatcher was digiscoped using a hand-held compact to the eyepiece of my scope.

APRIL 2009 - Return of Blackbird youngsters!

Having not seen the Blackbird chicks since they fledged a couple of weeks ago, it was reassuring to see three on the shed roof earlier this week. Now, as you will recall, we had two sets of Blackbird families hatched in the garden. Each nested yielded at least three chicks. We called the nest by the back door, family 'Set-A' and the nest high up in the conifers, family 'Set-B'. Well 'Set-A' hatched three of the four eggs. family 'Set-B' hatched three eggs of an unknown original quantity of eggs.

The three fledglings from family 'Set-A' soon dispersed from the garden, we believe to adjoining gardens, but the adult male Blackbird still was observed (and still is around, as he frequently has aerial fights with the male from 'Set-B') in the garden digging for worms and accepting mealworms. The adult female Blackbird has gone and has not been seen since the chicks fledged. She built a second nest in our garden but never occupied it. We can only assume that she has taken-up with another male or has perished!

Meanwhile, both the male and female adults from 'Set-B' are constantly making noisy demands of us to be fed mealworms!!! It's the male that does all the feeding of the fledglings. The female appears to completely ignore the fledglings if they are anywhere near her! She will not feed them at all! Though she will take food for herself. Now, she maybe on another nest, we don't know, but the male still defers to her if she's around and wants first dibs at the mealworms! So it was good to see three fledglings this morning, on the shed roof...being fed by two males! Whose belong to who? A fledgling even came to the back door with the male from 'Set-B' (both males can clearly be separately identified) to be fed and this is when I snapped thee photos!

APRIL 2009 - Hatfield Moor

Easter Bank Holiday Monday and a first visit to Hatfield Moor. A warm day and I took all of my clobber! Scope, bins and cameras weighed me down! I was kitted out for an expedition rather than a stroll through the Moor! Starting over at Ten Acre Lake where it was very quiet. Just a handful of birds. I was told that a Red-Necked Grebe had been seen there in the morning. I and another went in search of it....nothing! Though I did see a Little Grebe on the lake. Maybe this was a mis-identification, who knows? after an hour of wandering about and Avocet flying over and several Canada Geese, we called time. I drove round to the south-end of the Moor, my new acquaintance going home minus the prized photo of the Red-Necked Grebe!



Down at the south-end, it was more promising. Water Fowl on the lake, Pied-Flycatchers on the ground and Chiffchaffs in the trees. I strode-out on my todd. This being a new area, I had only the vaguest of maps on the main noticeboard to guide me! The signs proclaiming: "BEWARE OF ADDERS" didn't help! I had heard from a couple that they were particularly "active this morning!" Fortunately it was getting cooler so the chance of stumbling across one was diminishing all the time. A shame really as I have never seen one and a photo would be something else!



Many Great Tits, Reed Buntings and Chaffinches were seen from a hide overlooking a lake surrounded by moorland. A couple of Great-Crested and a lone Little Grebe were on the lake with the ever-present Coots. Another Avocet flew over. But the highlight of the day was the close encounter with a pair of Skylarks. I have not seen Skylarks for a long long time and to see a pair together was something else! Well... I'm calling calling them Skylarks. They didn't appear to take to flight like Skylarks, and they looked slightly 'dumpier' than the slimmer Skylark. The chap near me was talking Woodlarks, but I'm not so sure. For now, I'll call them Skylarks!

APRIL 2009 - Blue Tits nesting?

A pair of Blue Tits repeatedly visited the garden yesterday tea time. One would gather some material that my wife had put out for them while the other watched. I guess that the Blue Tit acually gathering the material was female and the other was the male escorting her. As shown here, a still image (above), and a short video (below) I shot with my camera.

A Robin was also collecting nesting material, but more in the shape of small leaves and twigs.

The Blackbird family of 'Set-B' are still in the garden. The parents are still visiting the back door for some mealworms. At least one fledgling was seen being fed by the male but we think there are two as he keeps taking food to different areas in the conifers. Meanwhile, the female seems to eat the mealworms herself rather than feeding the offspring! This is down to the male!

April 2009 - More Blackbird chicks fledge!!

As I thought, the Blackbird chicks from the Family 'Set B' were 2 days behind Family 'Set A'. Well today Sunday 5th, they have fledged! Though we can only see 2 fledglings, we suspect that there could be as many as four. Our reasoning is that the Blackbird Mum, (who incidentally we are now feeding mealworms exclusively since Saturday morning) in between feeding the two observable fledglings, goes back to the nest with mealworms. We can hear chirping from the nest too!

The fledglings from Family 'Set A' seem to have flown the garden, so to speak! They are now nowhere to be seen and even the parents are gone. Hopefully the fledglings will have hopped into the adjoining gardens and are being looked after by their parents who would stay reasonably close to their offspring. So they are not coming to the back door to get food, which in a way is a good thing as we don't want them to become too reliant on human intervention!!

APRIL 2009 - Blackbird chicks fledge & leave the nest

Friday 3rd, 15 days after the first chick hatched and 14 days after the other two hatched, all three chicks finally left the nest! I was lucky enough to witness the last two leaving the nest, after getting home from work. The first left the nest an hour earlier. So of the four eggs laid by the female Blackbird of 'Set-A', 3 chicks successfully fledged! The unhatched egg must have been removed by the adults because it was no loger in the nest. We beleive that they may have punctured it and drank the contents and then removed the shell. As for 'Set-B', there is no sign of fledging yet. Both the adults are still taking mealworms up to the nest. I suspect that these chicks are maybe 2 to 3 days behind 'Set-A' in their development.

MARCH 2009 - Feeding the chicks!

Both parents are being tested to the full by the three chicks of 'Set-A'. When the back door is opened in the morning...there they are...waiting. Waiting for the regular handouts of mealworms. Are they reliant on us? I think that certainly when the chicks weresmaller and weaker, the Blackbirds would take every mealworn available and still would if given the chance, to safely fledge their young. Both the male and female are not at all worried about coming into the kitchen to get a beak full of grubs. The chicks are very well developed now as can be seen by the photos. The chicks from 'Set-B' still haven't been seen. This is due to the nest being high up in the conifers, so were are unable to see them. Though the parents of that brood compete quite violently at times with the parents of 'Set-A', for the grubs. We do try to ensure that both sets of parents get an equal share. Today, Sunday 29th, it being mild and sunny the birds were very active. The chicks were seen more often as they raised their beaks to the food-providing parent!

MARCH 2009 - Blackbird Chicks revisited!

This morning, Saturday, it's cold! The breeze gets up and just goes right through the body! Brr! So it's good to see that the Blackbird chicks of Set-A are now getting their feathers to keep them warm. Though mum still spends alot of time sitting on them, they are bigger now after 9 days and it is noticeable that mum now sits higher in the nest. Both mum and dad are still coming into the kitchen, more now as the chicks hunger urges the parents on! This morning we had 3 male Blackbirds in the garden. The interloper sat transfixed as he watched the two resident males continue to parade their dancing-duels in between feeding the chicks. Set-B parents are just as busy with the feeding duties, though no photos yet of their chicks.

MARCH 2009 - Blackbirds in the kitchen!

Today both the male and female Blackbirds entered the kitchen to get mealworms for their chicks! My wife snapped these two images, amongst others of the pair helping themselves to the grubs. This is the pair that nests by the back-door. Much like the Robins during the Winter, they will now come into the kitchen and root around looking for mealworms! Earlier tonight, I caught a glimpse of the male Blackbird just coming out of the kitchen while I was busy feeding Blackbird Set-B. Yes we have designated both families as Blackbird Set-A that have chicks in the nest close to the back-door and Blackbird Set-B that nest across the garden high up in the conifers. We think that the Set-B chicks are a few days younger than the Set-A chicks as both parents only really started getting into the swing of regular food sorties a few days after the Set-A birds. We haven't been able to see the Set-B chicks because of their inaccessibility but the Set-A chicks are growing very rapidly, possibly due to the sustained food supply! It is now a week since hatching and already they have that familiar gape of the beak when being fed.

MARCH 2009 - Squirrel in the kitchen!

Today my wife managed to entice a squirrel into the kitchen....in return for a monkey nut! For sometime she had been trying to hand-feed the squirrel but he was not having it. He would come to the back door and take the nut from the step but not from her hand. Well today he finally plucked-up courage and actually came into the kitchen to get the monkey-nut as this photo shows.

MARCH 2009 - Blackbird Chicks!

On Thursday 19th, one of the 4 eggs in the nest hatched. The next day two more chicks hatched-out. The Blackbird adults are young parents and appear to be inexperienced compared to the pair nesting on the other side of the garden. Unfortunately, this nest is fairly high up in conifers and well hidden. So we don't know if the more experienced pair have any chicks or not! Whereas the nest by the back door is well constructed in the ivy but low-down and vulnerable to predation. We know why the Blackbird female built the nest by the back door - it's handy for food! The fourth egg has not hatched yet and I think that it at this stage, it must be a "dud". The chicks are growing rapidly, so the parents must be doing something right. The male Blackbird has been at the back door for mealworms and at least once, according to my Wife, stood on the door step! Speaking of visitors to the back door, The Robins have made themselves scarce. We suspect that they have paired-off and have nested elsewhere.

MARCH 2009 - Sparrowhawk visit!

Early this afternoon a Sparrowhawk descended into the garden! The first I knew of this was when the Sparrows gave that familiar rapid and repetitive short rasping call. A female, she kept looking around for prey but all the birds had dived for cover into the conifers! After about 15 minutes she flew off without making a kill. As far as we know, she didn't make a return visit.

MARCH 2009 - Blackbird nesting revisited.

The female Blackbird is still on the nest just outside the kitchen door. She has now been on the nest for 9 days and with incubation between 11 - 17 days we are hoping for all 4 eggs to be hatched safely. She spends most of the day on the nest, only occasionally getting off and going for a bath in the shallow pool by the pond or to take mealworms that we put out for her.

MARCH 2009 - Frogs' spawn!

One of the first noticeable changes in our garden that Winter is making way for Spring, is the return of the Frogs to our pond. From mid-February, both female and male Frogs make their way back to the pond and join the resident male population. Now in mid-March, the greatest count of frogs has been 74 and many have paired-off. There are approx 16 clumps of spawn in the pond much to the annoyance of the fish! The Frogs tend to monopolise the shallows where the fish usually shelter and rest. But now it is crowded with frogs and spawn!

MARCH 2009 - Blackbird nesting!

One of the female Blackbirds has built a nest close to the back door. She laid 3 eggs on Friday 6th and by Saturday 7th, had laid 4 eggs. With all the coming and going, she doesn't seem perturbed at all. It's as if she believes that it will be safer near the back door.

Two Coal Tits had paired up as had two Blue Tits that visit the garden. Two of the three Robins seem to have vanished. Maybe they have paired-off to nest. The third still visits the kitchen but not on a regular basis.

The Longtailed Tit has paid another visit, again to the small bush near the back door, quite near to where the Blackbird has nested.

FEBRUARY 2009

This month started with snow and at times for very cold. This of course meant that the birds were continually feeding, especially the Robins and Blackbirds on the mealworms.

Down at Lakeside, the lake froze in places and this is evident as can be seen from the photo I captured of the four Black-headed Gulls standing on the frozen water. Cormorants and Great Crested Grebe were also seen down at the Lakeside this month.
As usual, a great number of Gulls and Mute Swans were present along with a sudden influx of Pochard.

On the local school fields one Sunday, I was treated to a rare sight of a flock of 17 Pied Wagtails roaming en masse across the grass. At the same time, a Kestrel was perched atop the rugby posts, scanning the ground for prey. Every now and then it would swoop down and dig at the ground with its beak, presumably for worms.

On the 27th, three Goldfinches came to the niger feeders. To see three of these birds together is rare for us and our garden. My wife has managed to video this momentous happening!

JANUARY 2009

A solitary visit by a Greenfinch to the seed feeders in the early part of the month was most unusual. The middle of the month saw the continued visits by a Wren. It seems to have taken up residence nearby and is often seen in the garden, rooting about in the leaf-foliage. We captured video footage of the Wren killing a Caterpillar and then devouring the large pupae.

The two male Blackbirds are still around and will perform a ritual scuffle at the back door for mealworms. The two females, tend to stay out of the way but grab a few mealworms when the males are preoccupied with each other!

The Robins are very regular visitors in the kitchen, flying in for a feast of mealworms. There are three of them, though we are unsure of what sex they are – two males, one female – two females, one male – three females or three males? How do you tell the difference? We have noticed that they have distinct shapes and indentations of their red breasts. Taking note of this we have found that one particular Robin will take four mealworms at one ‘sitting’ while another will take four. The third Robin tends to stay out of the kitchen and only eat seed, oats etc.

On the 29th, there was a surprise visit by a female Sparrowhawk to the garden. She landed on top of a garden arch and stayed for about 20 minutes. As you would expect, the resident bird population took to cover for the duration. She departed without catching anything – in fact she didn’t even try!

The Squirrels were always in the garden but the birds seem fairly used to them now. How this will affect egg-laying in the Spring – we shall see? My Wife did manage to tempt one of the Squirrels to the back door for some peanuts. We have remarkable video footage of this!

At Potteric Carr, several Pintails were seen on one of the marshes. This was a FIRST for me. Quite a neat duck! Three Bulfinches were also noted at the Nature Reserve.