Forum home Wildlife gardening
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Anyone else get slightly "rare" bird visitors?

Since I moved the feeder pole to a spot in the garden where I can see it from the sofa, I've started to see birds that I haven't seen since childhood. There's two pairs of Goldfinches, a pair of Greenfinches and this morning, for some reason a Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding on the peanuts.

«134

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    It's lovely isn't it - especially early in the morning.  We get lots of  goldfinches and some greenfinches as well as dunnocks, blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches, blackbirds, house sparrows, starlings and a pair of robins who come and sit on our hands to take live mealworms.   The goldfinches sing from our big ash trees - it's great.

    We have had great spotted woodpeckers and green woodpeckers too, but not so often.

    image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • The Dunnocks are hilarious, they have to be the most inquisitive looking little birds around. I've yet to see one that looks like it's head is screwed on straight.Tits and FInches with the exception of the greenfinches are numerous. We only seem to have one Robin this year, He's leaving it a bit late. Starlings only ever turn up after a torrential downpour. Presumably they are having at the worms and leatherjackets flushed to the surface.

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    I just went out to feed the robins (again) and watched a family of marauding magpies taking eggs from the collared doves' nest - again.  The doves put up a fight, but were overwhelmed - again.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • AWBAWB Posts: 421

    I regularly see a little egret, about once a week, by the side of the river.

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    And what a coincidence - I just heard that 'chick ... chick' call and looked out of the window to see a Gt Spotted Woodpecker feeding in the big ash tree image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Lily PillyLily Pilly Posts: 3,845

    We saw a tree creeper!

    Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
    A A Milne
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117

    LilyP - we regularly had a tree creeper in the garden round the corner from where I am now - there were two mature trees there. I loved seeing him - mainly late winter - running up and down the trunk image

    Greenfinches seem to be declining here - not seen any for years, even at my last house where we had hordes of wildlife, I only ever saw the odd one now and again.

    Not in the garden but I saw a couple of wheatears on the mountain on Friday. Delightful  image

    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    I used to see a treecreeper in grounds of the office where I worked image

    We hadn't seen greenfinches here for a couple of years, but there's at least a couple of pairs around this spring image

    Wheatears - lovely - saw them on Skye image

    I've just heard from a friend in Northern Germany who saw a Bluethroat (luscinia svecica) yesterday morning - he said the song was beautiful - apparently they sometimes appear in the spring in the East of England, so I shall keep my eyes (ad ears) open.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • OneofsevenOneofseven Posts: 338

    Our Gr. Spotted Woodpeckers just love the peanut feeder, and they make real pigs of themselves on the homemade fat feeders - right by the computer window!

    I saw a lesser Spotted Woodpecker for the first lime yesterday, (no red underpants), and a pair of Pied Wagtails have taken up residence somewhere close, they are not at all worried about me working in the garden, just keep flitting around me, even talking to me from the apex of the greenhouse while I was inside, which was a real shock!

  • Pink lilyPink lily Posts: 175

    I had a new visitor in the garden last week, a tiny Robin Redbreast which I know is not unusual, but it has a metal ID ring on its leg.  Have never seen a wild bird with a ring in it, could it be part of a breeding program?  

Sign In or Register to comment.