Thursday 2 February 2017

Garden Watch

I had time on Sunday to do my hour for the garden bird watch for the RSPB. It was not the greatest of days with the birds doing their usual disappearing trick. I ended up with just 7 species

2 Blue Tits
1 Robin
1 Wren
2 House Sparrows
1 Goldcrest
2 Great Tit
1 Blackbird

Now i've noticed whilst being off work and having the time to watch the garden a lot more there is no consistency to the birds visits. A couple of years back you could almost set your watch by the regularity of the majority of the birds being in the garden - early morning, lunchtime, late afternoon. These days the birds pop in and out all day long and certainly not in the numbers they used to. Of course there are moments when the Starling flock in in large numbers and the Goldfinch charm descend but for the most it's usually 2 or 3 birds of each species.

During the full day on Sunday we also had Goldfinch, Great Tits, Long Tailed Tit, Coal Tits, Starling, and Dunnock so there are certainly birds around, they just don't seem to work to the clock anymore!

After i'd finished my hour I was still watching out the window and saw a flock of birds land in a distant tree - Waxwings! They stayed in the tree a couple of minutes before flying right over the house - very nice tick! 

Here's one bird we don't get in the garden very often, two appeared in the garden last week but didn't hang around long.



4 comments:

  1. Interesting to read of your garden birds Pam. We don't get the numbers we used to either :( Wonderful news re: Waxwings and we've also had just one garden visit from a Bullfinch this year.

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    1. Thanks, it's a shame isn't it, we do get quite a variety I suppose even if the numbers are down!

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  2. Very interesting to read your observations about your garden birds and to be honest this winter has seen fewer birds visiting our garden as well. We have had a run of mild, or at least relatively snow-free, winters, so perhaps this is a factor?

    Lovely to see the male Bullfinch, they are such beautiful birds aren't they :-)

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    1. It could well be a factor, it would make sense. The Bullfinch are lovely, just a shame they don't hang around! :)

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