Archive for the ‘updates’ Category
The snow has reached Devon, and with it bringing some new visitors to the garden. It’s been busy with our regulars coming daily and the recent snowfall has brought in a few more Bullfinches, the Woodpecker has returned, and also 3 Fieldfare joined us yesterday. Last year we had a Fieldfare sat in a tree at the back of the garden when it snowed, but this year, the 3 Fieldfares have been in the garden eating the apples that we put down in addition to the gound food mixture of fruit and fat for the ground feeding birds as well as a variety of hanging seed and fat feeders across the garden.
The cold weather over the past few days has really boosted activity around the garden, with more birds, and a greater variety too. As mentioned below, late last week we had an influx of wintering chaffinch joining our resident ones as numbers suddenly increased from four or five regulars to ten or more dropping in. Likewise with the starlings, who have now found the bird cake. Alongside these we now also have a couple of pied wagtails, birds that were not around a few weeks ago.
I’ve also noted a bit of winter song lately. Alongside robin and wren, I’ve heard dunnock and great tit and, although not in the garden, song thrush. The latter has this odd burst of vocal activity in December before going quiet again until spring.
After a month of rain, rain and more rain the weather has now changed to being cold, bright and crisp. The birds have been busy throughout, and now the cold is really here, we’ve put up a few more feeders and fat blocks in addition to the nut feeders and sunflower seed feeders too.
Highlight of the week, was a flock of new chaffinches arriving, including a brief visit from semi albino female chaffinch with pure white head and neck.
One of the robin pics on flickr is on the BBC Devon Website!
It was a busy summer in the garden, with many of our feathered friends visiting daily and others with their young families heading off on their travels.
The goldfinches have done well this year, and the greenfinch population is not as large or visible as last year. But autumn is here now, and our regulars including – blackbird, robin, dunnock, greenfinch, goldfinch, blue tit, great tit, sparrows, the occassional magpie and a few more have been joined on occassion by some other birds too.
A Nuthatch visited very briefly week before last, and Coal Tit is now a regular visitor popping in for some peanuts, and last week we had a small flock of Redwing in the trees at the end of the garden. This week, the Wren came back and this morning one of the young Bullfinches returned after a few months away from the garden.
As winter advances we hope to see some of last years winter visitors return too.
It’s still busy in the garden with a constant flurry of birds on the feeders and on the ground too. The young dunnocks hop happily about in amongst the undergrowth. We have a few young robins one of which still has his speckly juvenile coloured head, but showing a nice red chest now too. The 3 young bullfinches are growing well, and appear to be larger than their parents now.
The blackbirds are still very regular visitors to the garden, and we think that 2 pairs are on their third brood. The greenfinch and goldfinch population seems to have doubled with all their young joining in for the constant snacking at the garden cafe too. We’ve gone back to using live mealworms once again, and enjoy watching robin pop down for a quick snack, and also admire how the blackbird manages to line up so many in his beak in a neat formation before taking them back to the nest.
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Flickr Photos
Garden Birds 