Bird Report

As winter begins, our garden bird population is growing, in interest as well as in numbers.  We had at least a dozen goldfinches this morning, among the most attractive of our finches, and very agile birds.  They divide their attention between the nyger seed and our sunflower hearts.  Blue tits visit in about the same numbers, and they prefer the sunflower hearts to anything else on offer, but will also peck at the peanuts and fat balls. They completely ignore the nyger seed, as do the great tits and coal tits which are present in smaller numbers. We have occasionally been visited by a marsh tit, and the other day had a family group of long tailed tits, which were present at the same time as goldfinches and a pair of bullfinches, making for a quite delightful scene.

Coal tits routinely take sunflower hearts and secrete them in various hiding places, including hanging baskets and plant pots. A single bird will whizz to and fro, removing quite a few seeds. Coal tits seem quite fussy, and will reject several before deciding on one they like, so a fair few seeds get deposited under the feeders, benefiting the chaffinches which are not as agile as many of the other birds, and the dunnocks which always feed on the ground.

Today we've had a nuthatch. This particular nuthatch seems to be quite a timid bird, compared to the rather macho nuthatches we've seen elsewhere. Nuthatches can generally move most other birds off the feeders, but this one seems quite oblivious to the fact that in general other birds will get out of its way; it is easily spooked into flying off by even the slightest movement. Of course, everything does get out of the way of the great spotted woodpecker. This comes exclusively to the peanut feeder, but the other feeders generally remain unvisited until she moves on. I think we have only one woodpecker visiting, a female.

Their sheer size means that wood pigeons generally, as they arrive, scare the other birds away. When something that big flies in, the average blue tit or chaffinch isn't going to stop to see whether it's a sparrow hawk or a pigeon, the thing to do is to head for the bushes, pdq! We can have three or four wood pigeons at a time. Sometimes they perch on the feeding station, looking inquisitively at the feeders, but of course they can't use them. Fortunately there are plenty of dropped seeds below for them to go at.

Squirrels manage to get to the feeders, despite the squirrel baffle we've put in. Occasionally I come out and shout at them, but mostly I can't be bothered. Today we had a little spat between a squirrel and a wood pigeon that was briefly quite entertaining. It wasn't much of a fight in the end! I added a new feeder to the smaller feeding station in our front garden this afternoon. I wonder whether it will tempt the local house sparrows? They were the first birds to find the original feeder at this site, but hardly visit now that the local blue and great tits have started using it.