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Tits like coconuts. The bird thread!
Small flock of long-tailed tits (looking vainly for coconuts) in the garden this lunchtime. We have a very fat and contented chaffinch who lives on the niger-seed feeder!
Interesting. I didn't realise chaffinches liked niger seed too. I thought it was mainly goldfinches - though our goldfinches munch their way through the sunflower seeds quite happily.
Everybody seems to like our sunflower hearts. Had to put a couple of feeders in another part of the garden for the squirrels so they didn't eat all those for the birdy types!
Jars of buggy butter are exceedingly popular with the local coal tits. Also with the hooligans (starlings).
Nice thread title! The next time I refill the coconut shells I shall do so with rather more attention.Lots of birds in the garden today, including a flock of about 20 starlings busily working their way around the Torbay palms. Sadly, we don't see goldfinches in our garden. Nothing seems interested in the niger (nyger? nyjer?) seed. I change the seed in the feeder regularly and use up the older stuff in a small bird mix I put together to feed the cirl buntings along the coastal path.
LA, I don't think many water pipits winter in the UK, so if that's what you've spotted you've got yourself a rarity.
We've got lots of jackdaws. They nest in next doors chimney despite the wire covers they've put on. They're just like the fighters on star wars as they fly in fast tuck their wings in and turn then straight in through the tiny gap. They massacre the fat balls we put out and steal them whole, flying off with them in the netting.
We get lots of seagulls on the roof of our flat. I swear they wear army boots.Not our flat here. The army boot wearing birds here are crows.
B J wrote: "Nice thread title! The next time I refill the coconut shells I shall do so with rather more attention.Lots of birds in the garden today, including a flock of about 20 starlings busily working thei..." That's what I thought.....I'd better keep it quiet!
My lot seem to be moving over to the fat balls now - but the seed is still disappearing at a rate of knots. The peanuts are not going too well at the moment. My little visitors are mostly your ordinary common or garden sparrows, with lots of pigeons and some crows........ but I don't mind what variety visit - I just love to see 'em. I know it says not to give them bread -but I have to own up to doing this - in small proportions! The crows are the funniest with this, as they always take it to the bird bath and let it soften in the water before eating it.
Darn it. I didn't top up the bird feeders before going away.Peanuts were the favourite with the tits until I ran out, so sunflower seeds are in vogue with them now.
I ran out of sunflower seeds previously, and for a week had none, and the goldfinches have stopped visiting. Might take a while to tempt them back. Shame, they are so beautiful.
I had Bullfinches in the summer, but they stopped visiting in the autumn even before I ran out of sunflower seeds.
T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "My lot seem to be moving over to the fat balls now - but the seed is still disappearing at a rate of knots. The peanuts are not going too well at the moment. My little visitors are mostly your ordi..."I think you're lucky with the sparrows, Flo. We hardly see any.
We have a resident robin and blackbird, although Bomber Command and Fat Pidge seem to have disappeared again - possibly to someone's Xmas larder! The American pheasant has been wondering around though.
https://images.gr-assets.com/photos/1...A photo I took this week of a cirl bunting. It was a gloomy, grey day so there was no sun to light up his colours, but I hope you can see what a pretty bird the 'Devon bunting' is.
It was only when I got home and looked at the photo that I spotted the dunnock further into the hedge.
I hope the bird flu doesn't cross the channel. There's wild ducks ill in northern France and the poultry industry is going to be really hard hit again.
Elizabeth wrote: "T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "My lot seem to be moving over to the fat balls now - but the seed is still disappearing at a rate of knots. The peanuts are not going too well at the moment. My little v..."Don't wory about fat pidge - he's here, we'll make sure he keeps on eating! We've got a great flock of long tailed tits that appear on the apple trees every couple of days. I was in the garden standing still, looking at the Eucalyptus and planning the next stage of chopping it down when they suddenly surrounded me. It was amazing, they were all round me for a couple of minutes, hopping from branch to branch, picking insects from the trees I think. One was only around eighteen inches away. Brilliant.
This morning's news has confined all chickens to indoors for the next month in the UK. Poor Mattie, my only remaining chicken, is confined to barracks and can't go out onto her 'chicken field' - an area of grass given over to her for grazing. Fortunately she has a covered (in see-through corrugated plastic) run of 3 x 2'4 metres so she's not stuck for space but people with just an ark and a few chickens in a fenced-off area must keep them in the ark which to my mind is cruel.
We get lots of goldfinches - too many sometimes because they bully the tits from the feeders - but never a bullfinch, Chris. Haven't seen one in years. Do you have something special in the garden they feed on? Haven't seen any long-tailed tits for a while either but do see an occasional coal tit. They're really cute. Quite a few sparrows but lots of jackdaws around here so rarely see a starling.
One big problem is that although commercial poultry can be kept in, supplies of straw etc for bedding is usually in barns that wild birds have access to and the disease can spread that way. In fact any farmer supplying straw can be at risk. It's impossible to keep birds out of barns.
We've got starlings and jackdaws. We have one starling who seems to think he's a sparrow. He lives with our mob all year round.
Mum gets a big variety of birds in her gardenRegular Visitors
Blue tits (usually in the nesting box every year)
Sparrows
Dunnocks
Wrens
Robin
Great Tits
Coal Tits
Greenfinches
Chaffinches
Goldfinches
Bulfinches
Blackbirds
Ring Collared Doves
Wood Pigeons
Occasional Visitors
Jays
Long Tailed Tits
Goldcrest
Thrush
My sister had most of the same birds visiting them with the addition of
Woodpeckers
Siskins
Nuthatch
And of course a barn owl.
But never any Bulfinches.
So she was quite pleased that one of the first birds that visited her new garden (she moved last Friday) was a Bulfinch.
I'm sure I've missed some birds off the list.
Starlings are one that rarely seem to visit the garden anymore - there used to be dozens of them.
Mines about the same as your mum's. Although I did see a woodpecker last year and sparrowhawk No bullfinches this year here either. We get a lot of goldfinches, green finches. Our garden is quite enclosed by bushes so the seagulls don't come down thank goodness.
Kath wrote: "This morning's news has confined all chickens to indoors for the next month in the UK. Poor Mattie, my only remaining chicken, is confined to barracks and can't go out onto her 'chicken field' - an..."Why? The weather or the bird flu?
My favourite visitors are the hypno-doves, a pair of collared doves that turn up at the feeder at least once a day. If they find the tray empty and see me inside the house, they’ll flutter madly in the window until I come out and fill it. I’m hugely impressed that they’ve figured out this trick; my wife just says, “They’re controlling your mind”.
Keep Matti safe Kath, it's the poor turkeys I feel sorry for, even the free range ones won't see the light of day for the rest of their lives ! My pair of Grey Wagtail are still coming round the pond a couple of times a day, they are Evie's new favourite birds, she might do better when we go to RSPB looking for them rather than the golden eagles she's been looking for all summer !
Jay-me (Janet) wrote: "Mum gets a big variety of birds in her garden"That's almost the same as a list I would have written, although haven't seen a woodpecker in the garden for about 4 years. Substitute starlings by the dozen, and a heron, regular visitor , even though we have no fish in the pond (thanks to last years heron, and a mega frog population!)
Last year we had 'scruffbag' the blackbird, which we had pretty well tamed. He would come into our conservatory and once or twice take mealworms by hand. We now have a dog, so he gave up visiting indoors and stays up the garden.
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "Mines about the same as your mum's. Although I did see a woodpecker last year and sparrowhawk No bullfinches this year here either. We get a lot of goldfinches, green finches. Our garden is quite e..."That reminds me, I came home from work a few months ago, and t'missus said to me, "Ooh, we had an eagle in the garden today !"
I was most impressed as we live in Warrington, not the Cairngorms, so out came the bird book for her to identify 'the eagle'.
I was hoping it was at least a buzzard, but it was one of our regular sparrowhawks who make charges at the sparrows.
I've never seen a successful strike, but by Bill Oddie's beard, do those little birds scatter for cover!
Then the sparrowhawk prowsl about the lawn and borders, while the sparrows filter themselves away through the shrubbery, and the sparrowhawk looks annoyed. They have a superb annoyed face.
They do Chris, what always amazes me is a regular sight of a couple of crows attacking a buzzard. I don't know if it's their hard beaks but they seem to win and drive the buzzard off.
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "They do Chris, what always amazes me is a regular sight of a couple of crows attacking a buzzard. I don't know if it's their hard beaks but they seem to win and drive the buzzard off."it may be that the Buzzard just does fight like that, they've started too close to attack?
I've seen a single crow drive a buzzard off. Amazing sight. Crows really seem to hate buzzards. I love them. They'll often spend long periods sitting on a fence post or telegraph pole just watching their territory. Magnificent birds.
When we drive up the long motorway through the centre of France its mostly fenced off farmland, the number of little hawks sitting on the fence posts is remarkable. They do vary in colour so I'm not sure which type they are, we just point them out to each other as Post Hawks.
I'm now suffering bird envy.Janet, would you ask your Mum and sister if they'd like to swap some of their greenfinches/goldfinches/bullfinches for some of my herring gulls, blackbacked gulls, blackheaded gulls and magpies?
Our friend with a lake with koi and other fish has been visited by a cormorant. He's not happy. The cormorant is though.
Gulls, gulls, gulls, kittiwakes, crows (roof wrecking hooligans), magpies, blackbirds, starlings, tits of most hues (not seen a long-tailed here though), those yellow jobs (greenfinches?), chaffinches, robins, wrens (what an enormous voice those wee things have!), woodpecker (great spotted), heron, BLOODY WOOD PIGEONS. And sometimes we also get pufflings, drawn into the town by the bright lights :)
We have buzzards nesting in the little wood we can see from the bedroom windows. Three at a time, soaring, is a wonderful sight. We also have a regular sparrowhawk visitor. You sometimes see a few pathetic spots of blood and a whole mess of feathers, where it's peeled its tea (usually a pigeon or a collared dove) before flying off with it.
My mother gets bullfinches, nuthatches and dozens of goldfinches in Melrose. And sparrowhawks!
I don't suppose you lot ever get blue jays or cardinals, do you?
Managed to get an almost decent photo of one of the Water Pipits at last! https://www.goodreads.com/photo/group... .
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I don't suppose you lot ever get blue jays or cardinals, do you?"No, you're right, us lot don't. We have the Eurasian jay which is much less blue and a number of finches that have red feathers, but not the cardinal.
Shame, Beej. They're almost as magnificent as some of the birds in South America and Africa.
L.A. wrote: "Managed to get an almost decent photo of one of the Water Pipits at last! https://www.goodreads.com/photo/group... ."A perky pipit posing prettily!
As far as I know, the only reliable way to tell a water pipit from a rock pipit is to watch carefully when it takes off. Water pipits have a band of white feathers along the edge of the tail with the rest of the tail darker than its body. Rock pipits lack the white edge and the tail is the same pale grey as the body.
Egrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention
They taste of nought at allAnd always give me indigestion.
What's this one then folks??
This was in my back garden - with his bloodied prey! He looks like a bank robber with a mask on!
Rosemary (grooving with the Picts) wrote: "Egrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention"Ha, ha, ha - like it!
It seems no time since I travelled miles for a first view of the newly-arrived little egret. I still remember the surprise at seeing those bright yellow feet at the end of the black legs. In 20 years or so they seem to have spread over most of the country.
Rosemary (grooving with the Picts) wrote: "Egrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention".........excellent pun! Wish I'd thought of it!! ;-)
T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "What's this one then folks??This was in my back garden - with his bloodied prey! He looks like a bank robber with a mask on!"
Tricky! It looks as if we have a bird that kills other birds/small mammals, has a dark grey (rather than yellow) beak, grey (rather than yellow) legs, dark eyes, a front that isn't streaked and that bandit mask.
At the risk of being scoffed at by someone who actually knows what they are talking about, I'd say it could be a great grey shrike.
Kath wrote: "They taste of nought at allAnd always give me indigestion."
Channelling the spirit of Sid Kipper, Kath? :)
http://www.kipperfamily.co.uk/inthefa...
The feathered sort!
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