Worcestershire Garden Watch (2 Viewers)

[Ravenwing]

first time I have ever seen a Reed Bunting in my garden. Food must be very scarce. I always have around 30 Sparrows 4 Robins, a few Blackbird and Pigeons, the odd Jay and half a doz Dunnock, but RBunting!

Nice one, I have only once seen a Reed Bunting around our garden area which is in some ways a bit surprising given the environment. We again have a "tree full" of Siskin, Redpoll, Chaffinch and Goldfinch this morning. I have run out of sunflower hearts again !

 

[No1]

We had a single reed bunting regularly through February in our garden in Warndon Villages, Worcester but not seen it lately

 

[Ravenwing]

One Siskin Gone

Sitting looking at my garden this morning I watched a Sparrow Hawk take a Siskin from a tree about 15ft in front of me. The cycle of life goes on !

 

[keithr]

Not strictly in Worcestershire but almost on the border and did not want to start another thread but I had a Female - then Male Greenfinch looking for a nesting site in my conifer...not very inspiring I know but as I have only managed a Robin/Dunnock/Magpie and Pigeon in 10 years it is to me.....

Keith :t:

sorry crap pics - especially the Male...shot through glass.

 

[toadoftoadhall]

Sitting looking at my garden this morning I watched a Sparrow Hawk take a Siskin from a tree about 15ft in front of me. The cycle of life goes on !

I had the unwelcome visitor the other day too. My bird feeder became a feeder for a bird.

 

[Sy V]

Spotted this beauty feeding on the flowers of one of our Acers today. Would someone care to identify the species of bee please?

 

[woodwolf]

Spotted this beauty feeding on the flowers of one of our Acers today. Would someone care to identify the species of bee please?

♂ Hairy Footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes)...?

 

[keithr]

Spotted this beauty feeding on the flowers of one of our Acers today. Would someone care to identify the species of bee please?

.........I read it as "one of our acres"...HE HE HE.....

Brill pics....I find these so hard to capture.
Keith :t:

 

[woodwolf]

This is a Female Hairy Footed Flower Bee, about a week ago, in the garden

 

[Sy V]

.........I read it as "one of our acres"...HE HE HE.....

Brill pics....I find these so hard to capture.
Keith :t:

Keith

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't mean to give the impression that it was easy. This (essentially) involved me sitting motionless on the lawn for... 15 mins or so.

 

[Jason K]

My local House Sparrows have successfully fledged 5 young so far along my street. Below is a photo of one of the juvs taken in the back garden

 

[Sy V]

It was very windy in the extended garden this morning but I managed to get enough shots to make up this focus stacked image of a Dandelion Head.

 

[Ravenwing]

Starlings Everywhere !!!!!

Three years ago we never saw a Starling in our garden, today it looks as if several nests have fledged and there have been over 20 young and several adults in our garden all day and they have eaten an entire suet cylinder in 24 hours !!! Also I have just had to rescue a youngster from our garden pond, somehow it got below the net and was trapped between the net and the water!
Its really great to see so many of them here today
Alex

 

[Joeturner11]

5 Sand martins again today about in the sky

 

[keithr]

Three years ago we never saw a Starling in our garden, today it looks as if several nests have fledged and there have been over 20 young and several adults in our garden all day and they have eaten an entire suet cylinder in 24 hours !!! Also I have just had to rescue a youngster from our garden pond, somehow it got below the net and was trapped between the net and the water!
Its really great to see so many of them here today
Alex

I meant to put this title on earlier in the month as almost every bird I saw was a Starling.
The acid test will be if one lands in my tiny garden though.....they do hundred miles an hour flypast already.

Keith :t:

 

[Jason K]

The young birds are flooding into the garden now. Sunday I counted 11 juv House Sparrows and this morning an incredible 22 juv Starlings.

Add to that we started having our garden fat feeder (my wife's homemade fat cakes) visited by a Great Spotted Woodpecker on the weekend for the first time in 10 years of living here (in a terraced street in a town centre!).

All in all a good garden weekend...oh yeah and the BBQ wasn't too bad on Sunday either!

 

[Sy V]

While I was posting Tim's requested gull shots this morning, I became aware of a real commotion going on in our front garden. It appears that our Greenfinches have fledged four chicks.
Apologies, but images taken through double glazing and one's the other side of the road!

 

[Joeturner11]

Seen them nesting about at Slimbridge yesterday!

 

[Ravenwing]

An uncommon visitor and lots of young birds

I spent a couple of hours in the garden this afternoon with my camera and saw the following 19 species in the garden - Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Robin, Dunnock, Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, Jay, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Magpie, Moorhen, Starling and rarest of all - a House Sparrow. This is the first House Sparrow that I have seen in our garden for over 18 months!!! Overhead I saw Swallows and Swifts and a Mallard. I took a lot of photos particularly of youbg birds some of which are attached below. I am not sure if the Coal Tit is a young bird or a moulting adult but whatever it is the scruffiest Coal Tit I have ever seen ! Photos are
House Sparrow - rare for me
Coal Tit - aka Scruffy
Robin
Greenfinch
Starling

 

[Jason K]

This summer we decided to do some supplementary feeding in our humble terraced house garden (n the centre of a built up part of town), mainly to help the local population of House Sparrows & Starlings during the breeding season. The food we've been putting out is dried mealworms and homemade fat cakes.

The breeding of both species has been very successful with successive broods of House Sparrows and good numbers of juv Starlings being fed by the adults on the aforementioned food.

A real bonus though was having the feeders visited by a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers for the first time and flying off with mouthfuls of fat cake. When the young fledged (2 juvs) they then visited the garden to be fed by the adult male. It was a real privilege to watch and we are still being visited by the adults every few days even now!