A song thrush gave us a full performance with front row seats and the opportunity for pictures. I'd not managed to spy any of the previous vocal performers before, you can usually hear them but they remain camouflaged. 

I've had no luck with the boxing hare hunt; although I am sure that we've seen quite a few more hares than usual so I have been lucky in that respect. Brown hare in a brown field with a brown backdrop. Brown. EDIT: since I drafted this post I have in fact seen a brilliant bit of hare boxing, see yesterday's post.


This curious bird flew between trees and I couldn't identify it. Sadly, the picture is not much help.

Long tailed tit. Aren't they cute?
More deer. These have stubby horns. I bet they feel all velvety.


Soaring buzzards remind me of planes stacking at airports. Buzzards are much more interesting to watch though.

After my garden bird watch rant about the birds deserting us when it really counted it's fair to say they're all out and about in full force now. We keep the feeders topped up to encourage visitors and are keeping everything crossed that we'll have some nests built in the spring. I've kept my camera on standby to capture some of our frequent visitors. Above, a blue tit and below, a great tit. Side by side they're easy to tell apart but one fleeting glimpse can leave me in doubt. Over the years we've had plenty of both with us. 
During the snowy weather this bird was looking rather interested in a nest box. I'm assuming it's a female sparrow?

The orange lower beak does look more like a rock sparrow than a house sparrow...

Ah, the goldfinches. On sunnier mornings we get a whole crowd on the conifer hedge tips which catch the early morning rays.  

How many can you spot? 

Robin playing peek-a-boo. 
The starlings. 

Above, blue tot in the feeder. They are so cute but the long tailed tits below are even cuter!!

Ok, so this robin wasn't in our garden but it's sneaked into a bird post regardless.

And finally, a blackbird. We've had loads in the garden since the snow departed and they're all getting frisky and flighty with that spring feeling.

 

On Sunday we took part in the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch. Over the last three or four years our garden has undergone plenty of changes, most of which have been of benefits to our avian friends. Most significantly to us, the two enormous coniferous trees that threatened to one day fall and smash through the house have gone. (phew) They were a worry. Of course, you might think that would be a detriment to the space but having released a large amount of tree footprint from the shadows we now have a useable amount of space instead. There we have installed a pond, shrubs, perennial and annual flowers and a bird bath. The coniferous hedge along the back has maintained feeding and perching continuity. 

Secondly, there are a lot of bird boxes in place here and there of varying shapes and sizes. Plus we have three separate feeding stations of hanging feeders each with a mix of different foods and water. The stations are located in the open, under a tree and by the hedge to attract different birds. 

The birdwatch is an hour of keeping a note of the maximum number of each species that lands in your garden at any one time. Our feeders are usually kept fairly full and there's often a lot of birds to see so we were hopeful that our count would reflect our garden's popularity with the local birds.

Well, you can guess what I'm about to say. A lot of minutes of tumbleweed in our empty garden. It is baffling that as soon as you want to see anything then somehow they all stay away. The weather was fine, it was a sensible time of day, nothing raucous going on to scare them.... I was a bit annoyed again.

Our final tally doesn't sound too bad but there was not much action to show for an hour of observation.

1 Goldfinch

2 Pigeons (there's usually bloody loads, all making a noise and trying to get fruity in the branches)

2 Blackbirds (again, usually plenty, these birds are the tame ones round here and hang out for worms while we do the gardening instead of robins)

3 Great tits

2 Robins

3 Blue tits

3 Dunnocks

and a magpie that flew over but we can't count. 

I did anticipate seeing a starling, chaffinch, collared doves, crow (they ruin the feeders by their heavy landings and brutal peckings, I try to shoo them off).

Pictures of birds from yesterday when of course they all decide to hang about. Up the top, goldfinch enjoying the conifer seeds. On the bird bath, the song thrush.

We do get mostly blue tits and great tits nesting in our boxes, We know that blackbirds like our hedge and are fairly happy to be in close proximity to us. Last year sparrows nested in a box at the front and a few years ago a chaffinch family nested in the red robin bush. 

Let's see what this spring brings!

Take care,

Sophie

 

We've been catching up with Winter Watch at lunchtimes. There's such a lot of interesting activity that happens during the coldest times yet as always, we don't get to see much of it. I felt determined to see whatever was on offer on our subsequent outings. 

When C and I are out on our statutory daily walk I'm forever snapping away at things of interest with my camera. Usually with my 50mm prime lens but sometimes I throw caution to the wind and take out the zoom lens, albeit with the prime lens wedged in a pocket. It goes without saying that as soon as you pop on the zoom lens the light dwindles to nothing and there's not a bean to point it at but on Saturday, miraculously, we saw a lot of birds. Birds, which we don't often get to see that close, or stationary. It was a real treat both to see and to get some snaps of these fantastic creatures. Firstly, a kestrel. It clocked us, first looking over one shoulder, then the other. 

Then taking flight before we got any closer. For such an elegant bird, this shot has made me squawk with laughter, it looks like a chicken in a lampshade. 

Later on we saw another kestrel I suppose it could be the same one but moved on.
A corvid roost, and in flight.

I'm not far off being the world's worst at identifying birds, so naturally apologies if I completely fudge up throughout this post. My instinct was that this was a sparrow. Glad I checked because it's colouring looks nothing like the sparrow in my book. The closest was a dunnock and after a Google image search I'll settle on that. 

Ah, mate, I feel the same. Fluffy and flumpy this winter. Lovely little (big) robin and several more too.



Some ducks were going round in circles overhead. If one was trying to shake the others off it wasn't working.
Pleasant pheasant.
And the final cherry on the top of an already well iced cake, a buzzard which didn't think I could see it. Look at those claws! We have a lot of buzzards in our area, which are easy to spot in the sky and we hear their cries. Occasionally we see them perched on trees or telegraph poles. They can tend to look unkempt but this one didn't seem too shabby. 
A departing shot of the buzzard emptying itself before taking flight.