Very busy at the bird feeder today! (11 Viewers)

[exile]

My feeder station is very close to a fence that has a trellis on it. Just had a Wood Pigeon balancing on the trellis and reraching across to the Sunflower seed feeder. Never seen this before, is it unusual behaviour?

 

[bongofury]

Hi again folks..... now back on line again

110 Pink feet a fewdays ago and the Lesser Redpolls have sneaked upto a dozen or so.

Problems with your tinterweb? Nice geese count.

My first Redpolls of the winter today - 3 Lessers on the nijers accompanied by 6 Siskins. Also a male Brambling passed through, with 7 LTTs on the peanut cake and an unsuccesful attempt by a Sprawk. A total of 19 species seen today.

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Hi again folks..... now back on line again

110 Pink feet a fewdays ago and the Lesser Redpolls have sneaked upto a dozen or so.


Will catch up on the last weeks posts later on
Dave

Glad to have you back with us Dave. Have you been down to photograph the Eider at Rudyard Lake yet?

CB

 

[Cheshire Birder]

My feeder station is very close to a fence that has a trellis on it. Just had a Wood Pigeon balancing on the trellis and reraching across to the Sunflower seed feeder. Never seen this before, is it unusual behaviour?

My parents Wood Pigeons try a similar technique from the rooftop of the bird table. The birds try and reach the seed underneath while balancing carefully on the rooftop.

CB

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Opened the curtains at my parents this morning to see no less than 2000 Wood Pigeons flying over from a nearby roost site. Lots of activity today on their feeders but nothing unusual.

CB

 

[AndyK]

Just been out feeding the birds and something swooped over my right shoulder, into the bushes and flew to the houses behind and landed, a sparrowhawk! My wish for a garden bop tick came true, fantastic! Can't believe it flew so close to me!

 

[bongofury]

Just been out feeding the birds and something swooped over my right shoulder, into the bushes and flew to the houses behind and landed, a sparrowhawk! My wish for a garden bop tick came true, fantastic! Can't believe it flew so close to me!

Well done, Andy:t:

LTTs back again today, and now 4 Lesser Redpolls. Highlight of the day was 3 Redwings in the trees at the back.

 

[Bananafishbones]

yes there are several cats in the neighbourhood but I don't think it is a cat attack. it would be amazing to catch and kill two birds at once and leave them together within a few inches of each other.

Mrs P found them lying next to each other facing the same direction. Both the birds had folded wings one lying on its back one on its front.

We have been talking about this tonight and it occurred to me that the property next door has a tiny window immediately above . They rarely open the window as it is a 500 year old leaded chapel window and not very strong. All the small tits and finches scream round the corner of this building as they fly to our feeding station and perhaps they hit the window on the one day per year that it is opened ! ?:-C

A few years ago I found 2 Pied Wagtails outside work both lay dead side by side. They had flown around a corner straight into a window in unison and must have died instantly.

Happily this species breed in very good numbers in and around my works :t:

 

[Bananafishbones]

over the last few days: Fieldfare, GBB Gull, Pied Wagtail, Jay and the first Siskin since last winter.

 

[Bananafishbones]

Just been out feeding the birds and something swooped over my right shoulder, into the bushes and flew to the houses behind and landed, a sparrowhawk! My wish for a garden bop tick came true, fantastic! Can't believe it flew so close to me!

Brilliant :t:
Expect more visits as your garden may well be on its patch and it could well be catching prey in and around the area

 

[earleybird]

A few years ago I found 2 Pied Wagtails outside work both lay dead side by side. They had flown around a corner straight into a window in unison and must have died instantly.

Happily this species breed in very good numbers in and around my works :t:

Its comforting to think that a pair died together rather than one bird suddenly left on its own :-C
Mrs EB had two sparrows fly into her bike once and both died on the spot.

Saddest death I saw was a beautiful male duck run over by a car on one of the hottest days of the year and the female stayed with him all day in the baking sun.

Glad to see that you are back on line BFB :t: just had the same problem last week and I'm now trying to get to grips with Win7 on a new laptop grrrrrrr:C can't find anything

 

[warren30]

hi everyone I need some help identifying a bird have no pic yet,it flew away,while watching the finches and tits feeding on Niger and suet balls,a bird size of chaffinch roughly but was shorter looked longer on the suet balls it had a black head top part was like a cap on it,body was a grey/blue(more blue)colour,it wasn't afraid of the other birds even starlings,I looked through 2 books nearest it looks is a marsh/willow tit,there was a bird it looked like alot no chance of it being that (chariot treecreeper) body's arent very light grey blue,hopefully it appears on Wednesday I will take pic.

 

[Mary]

Was it anything like a male blackcap, warren30?

 

[mary99]

Record numbers of goldfinch for my garden today at 22 and six greenfinch, also a record I don't know why the numbers have jumped up so much today.

Mary

 

[warren30]

Was it anything like a male blackcap, warren30?

hi mary that's what I first thought,checked it in book nothing like a blackcap,I went through whole book RSpb guide to British birds and the large bto guide to British and European birds that has photos in easier to identify,nothing in there apart from the tree creeper from Europe,

 

[earleybird]

hi everyone I need some help identifying a bird have no pic yet,it flew away,while watching the finches and tits feeding on Niger and suet balls,a bird size of chaffinch roughly but was shorter looked longer on the suet balls it had a black head top part was like a cap on it,body was a grey/blue(more blue)colour,it wasn't afraid of the other birds even starlings,I looked through 2 books nearest it looks is a marsh/willow tit,there was a bird it looked like alot no chance of it being that (chariot treecreeper) body's arent very light grey blue,hopefully it appears on Wednesday I will take pic.

its funny how no matter how long you study a mystery bird for when you come to identify it later you realise you've missed some key identifying feature or other. :-C I'm slowly devising a method of recording because I'm hopeless at identifying in the field.

I now check the type and colour of the beak of small birds first of all. I find that if nothing else you can usually at least either confirm or eliminate finches at a stroke.
Next I note the colour of the legs . Only then do I note the birds plumage in detail and its relative size .

If the bird wasn't a bullfinch then perhaps it was a blackcap or one of the tits unless you have a migrant ? They'll be an expert along later who'll be sure to know.

 

[earleybird]

Record numbers of goldfinch for my garden today at 22 and six greenfinch, also a record I don't know why the numbers have jumped up so much today.

Mary

thats an incredable number of goldfinches Mary.:eek!: you do wonder where they all go to roost at night?

Our bird numbers are up substantially in the past few days and we think its due to the frosts killing off the last of the midges and other insects?

 

[captaincarot]

normally my contribution to this thread could be best described as bugger all different from yesterday, we have sparrows, then today B :t:8-P


as for mr BFB did you manage to start a year list for england this year mines passed 200 now

 

[earleybird]

normally my contribution to this thread could be best described as bugger all different from yesterday, we have sparrows, then today B :t:8-P


as for mr BFB did you manage to start a year list for england this year mines passed 200 now

nice Siskin CC :t: haven't seen one in our garden for months.:-C

 

[warren30]

its funny how no matter how long you study a mystery bird for when you come to identify it later you realise you've missed some key identifying feature or other. :-C I'm slowly devising a method of recording because I'm hopeless at identifying in the field.

I now check the type and colour of the beak of small birds first of all. I find that if nothing else you can usually at least either confirm or eliminate finches at a stroke.
Next I note the colour of the legs . Only then do I note the birds plumage in detail and its relative size .

If the bird wasn't a bullfinch then perhaps it was a blackcap or one of the tits unless you have a migrant ? They'll be an expert along later who'll be sure to know.

hopefully it will be back even if it's a normal bird be good to know where my I'd gone wrong,I was coming out shower had look from spare bedroom seen it there was surprised went downstairs watch it got camera it flew away gutted,I only noted body not legs or beak will do next time,all part of learning