Garden Birds 2018

Not a very exciting year for garden birds. The wood pigeons had three broods, I think, and were seen several times with immatures in tow. Blackbirds and collared doves both had two broods. Two wrens were spotted in the garden at the same time. House sparrows continue to do healthily well round these parts. Saw more swifts than ever before. House martins had a poor season and left early (mid August). The single sparrowhawk tends to keep everything else on its toes.

Advent Thought 21

Niger seeds, peanuts, sunflower hearts and fat balls. I spend a lot on my pets. I look out for them, scare away predators and keep them fed in the winter. I provide nesting sites and water. I record the different species that visit each day (nine today).

None of us has the reach to fix the whole world. Yet for me nine house sparrows, three wood pigeons, two collared doves, two blackbirds, a robin, a blackcap, a magpie, a blue tit and a dunnock were a little bit of the world I could look after.

My twelve year garden survey submitted to the RSPB every January adds to the data about bird population growth and decline. It also makes my looking out of the window slightly more useful than it might otherwise have been.

How are you making your bit of the world better?

Garden Bird Watch 2017

A very undramatic year of watching the birds through the window. A successful brood of collared doves led to there being 7 in the garden at one time back in the summer. We saw 19 different species (a bit low) including those flying overhead. A good number of house sparrows and the sparrowhawk was back.

House martins were observed between 16th April and 6th September with 20 of them chirping and feeding overhead in late August. 5 swifts were picked out of that lot when they put on a crowd-pleasing show of zooming between the houses around that time.

The field birds stayed in the fields mainly (too mild to need the feeders).

Garden Bird Watch 2016

The highlights from last year's observations:

Record number of house martins. Between 27/4 (first arrivals seen) and 13/9 (last sighting) we saw a decent population overhead which peaked at 22.

Likewise house sparrows. They seem to love especially the peanut feeders on a pyracantha bush. Maximum observed at any one time was well up this year, at 24.

First recorded observation of a nuthatch and a green woodpecker.  Also a song thrush for the first time for a few years.

Not cold enough (again) for the field birds to come near so no waxwings or fieldfare and  few goldfinches.

No sparrowhawks observed this year, which may explain the good sparrow population, although, in my experience, they would rather eat a dove.

Garden Bird Watch

A bit later then usual I have managed to analyse the figures for 2014. It was a disappointing year for garden birds - fewer species than previous years and numbers of regular visitors well down.

The only numbers that were up were magpies and house sparrows; an encouraging little gang of sparrers who seem to have the measure of the two local cats.

Only saw the sparrowhark a couple of times - its existence obviously makes the smaller birds (up to collared dove size) warier.

No greenfinches, chaffinches, bullfinches or jackdaws. House martin numbers reduced. Winter not cold enough for fieldfare or redwing to visit from the fields.

Feeders all charged though so I'll keep watching. Robins, dunnocks and blackbirds all nesting very locally.

Garden Birds 2013

Far fewer garden birds around last year than previously. Here's the list. If it's the most, or equal most, I've ever seen at any one time (been doing this for four years now) then the date of the observation is recorded. Species missing include chaffinch, fieldfare, redwing, swallow, greenfinch and pied wagtail. The end of 2013 was very mild and many birds stayed in the fields longer.



Blackbird 3



Blackcap 2 (26/12)



Black-headed Gull 5



Blue Tit 3



Buzzard 1



Coal Tit 1



Collared Dove 4



Crow 1 (17/10)



Dunnock 2



Goldfinch 15 (17/10)



Great Tit 2



House Martin 17 (23/8)



House Sparrow 15



Jackdaw 1



Jay 1



Long-tailed Tit 2



Magpie 3 (19/3)



Robin 2



Sparrowhawk 1 (several)



Starling 8



Swift 2



Wood Pigeon 4 (20/4)



Wren 1 (29/11)

Garden Bird Watch 2012

Here are the results of another year's staring out of the window (2011 numbers in brackets). Every species except the wood pigeon is down in numbers or the same.

Blackbird 3 (5)

Blackcap 2 (2)

Black-headed Gulls 1 (15)

Blue Tit 2 (5)

Bullfinch 1 (0)

Buzzard 2 (0)

Chaffinch 1 (3)

Chiff chaff 1 (0)

Coal Tit 1 (1)

Collared Dove 4 (7)

Common Gull 2 (0)

Crow 1 (1))

Dunnock 2 (4)

Fieldfare 1 (3)

Goldfinch 4 6 (20/2) 4

Great Tit 3 (21/5) 2 2

Green Finch 1 (27/11)

Herring Gull 3 (3/6) 2

House Martin 15 (16)

House Sparrow 13 (14)

Jackdaw 2 (2)

Jay 2 (1) 

 

Long-tailed Tit 5 (2)

Magpie 2 (2)

Robin 2 (2)

Sparrowhawk 1 (1)

Starling 8 (20)

Swift 3 (5)

Wood Pigeon 4 (3)

Wren 1 (1)

Garden Bird Sightings

Here are the results of a year's staring out of the window. I have listed the species (21 different ones) seen in, or immediately over, my garden in the last year. The number following is the most of that species seen at any one time, followed in brackets by the date on which that occurred. The final number is the figure for 2010:

Blackbird 5 (14/1/11) 5

Blackcap 2 (several) 2

Blue Tit 5 (6/1/11) 3

Chaffinch 3 (20/2/11) 2

Coal Tit 1 (10/5/11) 2

Collared Dove 5 (6/3/11) 7

Dunnock 2 (several) 4

Goldfinch 6 (8/2/11) (20/2/11) 4

Great Tit 2 (several) 3

House Martin 16 (31/8/11) 17

House Sparrow 16 (18/11/11) 14

Jackdaw 2 (28/3/11) 2

Jay 1 (1/1/11) 2

Long-tailed Tit 2 (31/1/11) 5

Magpie 3 (5/1/11) (27/2/11) 2

Robin 2 (several) 2

Sparrowhawk 1 (22/2/11) 0

Starling 20 (25/3/11) 36

Swift 5 (26/6/11) 3

Wood Pigeon 3 (several) 3

Wren 1 (several) 1

Observed 2010 but not 2011:

Black-headed Gulls

Common Gull

Crow

Fieldfare

Green Finch

Herring Gull

Heron

Pied Wagtail

Redwing

Song Thrush

Swallow

The eagle, parakeet and giraffe observations noted in the book all seem to have taken place on Tuesdays which, coincidentally, is when I host the Holy Trinity leadership team meeting.

Garden Bird Sightings 2010

Here are the results of a year's staring out of the window. I have listed the species (thirty one different ones) seen in, or immediately over, my garden in the last year. The number following is the most of that species seen at any one time, followed by the date on which that occurred:

Blackbird 5 (14/7/10)

Blackcap 2 (Several)

Black-headed Gulls 15 (8/1/10)

Blue Tit 3 (31/12/10)

Chaffinch 2 (25/12/10)

Coal Tit 2 (19/9/10)

Collared Dove 7 (10/9/10)

Common Gull 2 (27/11/10)

Crow 1 (30/3/10)

Dunnock 4 (27/5/10)

Fieldfare 3 (9/1/10)

Goldfinch 4 (29/12/10)

Great Tit 3 (21/5/10)

Green Finch 1 (27/11/10)

Herring Gull 3 (3/6/10)

Heron 1 (9/5/10)

House Martin 17 (1/9/10)

House Sparrow 14 (21/9/10) (23/11/10)

Jackdaw 2 (27/2/10) (19/3/10) (1/6/10)

Jay 2 (30/10/10)

Long-tailed Tit 5 (28/11/10)

Magpie 2 (28/4/10)

Pied Wagtail 2 (20/1/10)

Redwing 10 (9/1/10)

Robin 2 (21/1/10)

Song Thrush 2 (5/3/10)

Starling 36 (10/10/10)

Swallow 1 (15/5/10)

Swift 3 (26/5/10)

Wood Pigeon 3 (Several)

Wren 1 (Several)

Counting Birds

My New Year's Resolution last January was to count garden birds. Every day I lived at home, with a little help from the other occupants of the house or people who sat on the sofa with me in the conservatory, I made a note of what I saw.

Now there are strict rules about this sort of thing:

1. You have to make a definite identification before registering a sighting.
2. You can only count the maximum number of any one species you see at any one time. So even if three sparrows flying west are replaced by four coming in from the west you can still only count four. The exception is when species have clear differences between male and female - then you know there are two birds not one e.g. blackbirds, house sparrows.
3. The bird must land in or on your property or, in the case of a bird that spends most of its time on the wing (house martins, swifts, swallows), fly directly over the house or garden.

Results tomorrow evening.

Black-headed Gulls

There are quite a lot of black-headed gulls in the photo above. They don't have a black head in the winter, just a smudgy neck marking. When I took the picture they were transitional.

Between the lake and the car park is a crash barrier and the gulls like to perch on it. If scared they all, obviously, fly around a bit and then slowly come back in to land.

The metal bar at the top of the barrier is wider than their talons can grip easily and slippery when wet. They have to employ a fair bit of balancing and flapping to come to rest on it.

What I noticed is that, once a few have perched and got a grip, there is an easier way to land. You simply aim for the middle of the back of an already-perched bird, knock it to the floor and take its place. Hilarious, especially the dethroned who then peck around the grass a bit with an 'I meant that, you know' attitude. Who likes to own up to being bullied?

Hello Starling

One of the noises from the past which never fails to deposit me somewhere else is the sound of nesting, brooding starlings. Autumn and winter early evenings in Birmingham City Centre and the starling-noise was unbelievable. Some time in the 1970s the City Council's pigeon removal methods also removed all the starlings and the place now has a different sound-track. I don't return often enough to have it on recall yet.

But starlings are congregational birds. Over the summer they raise young in smallish groups and then start getting together. On our estate we start to see five or six sitting together on TV aerials (remember those) and lamp-posts. Then they begin flying around together.

Yesterday, and despite the hype the Mustard estate is a small, suburban garden, twenty eight of them pitched up and started clearing the newly mowed lawn of leather jackets and the like. Good work. Most of them were transitional in colour; grey brown fluff merging with the delightful greeny-black yellow iridescence of their adult plumage. There have been large broods this year.

Fully clothed starlings are very beautiful. They've had bad PR if you think they are ugly, black birds.

And soon their displays of aerial mathematics in huge numbers over the Somerset Levels will attract sight-seers so fine is it.

Big up to the starlings.

Garden Birds and Pen Theft

Late last year we decided that we would record all the birds who visited Mustard Park during 2010. Occupants of Mustard Mansion enjoy gazing out of the window doing naff all and this was a way to make that produce some helpful research data.

A small notebook was purchased and a pen placed adjacent to same (agreeing that this pen would remain in place) and on January 1st we began. A few ground rules were established using RSPB criteria. Even if three sparrows fly away east one second before four arrive from the west you cannot count seven. You can only count the maximum of any species you see at any one time.

Species that spend most of their time in the air can be counted over the garden, as long as you can be sure what they are (swifts or housemartins easy; gulls difficult). We count gulls only if they actually land, which they will risk if they are hungry enough and there is bread on the lawn.

Enough ornithology. Why, why in heaven's name, do I get so completely uptight and pissed off when the pen is missing? Mrs M wants to know and after 37 years I believe she deserves a thought out answer.

I am a creative thinker. That's not bragging it's a style thing. I make no claim to be any good at it. This means I go off on thought-tracks from time to time and get distracted. It is not unknown for a trip upstairs to involve three trips - two to do something more interesting I thought of on the way up and the third to do whatever it was I wanted. As fellow sufferer Michael Stipe (again, I make no claims for creative similarity) says, 'This makes me a good song-writer and poor company at dinner parties.'

So, Mrs M knows that in our house when she wants a pen there will be a pen. She doesn't find it possible to ignore the nearest pen and, once taken, has no system for putting it back because there will always be a pen fairly near.

If I spot a bird and there is no pen I will, by the time I've found a pen, have forgotten I wanted it to write down the name of a bird and will be using it to plan a Bible study, write a potential blog-post or do a cross-word in the paper whilst boiling a kettle for a coffee break.

Either she leaves the pen alone or I become the tattooed, memory-loss guy off Memento. The decision is hers.

Great Tits

Towards the end of the fledging period both adult great tits using our garden nesting box were flying a sortie every couple of minutes to deliver food. We could hear the noise of at least three chicks in the box but we only saw one actually fledge. This was about ten days ago.

Having not seen any of them for a few days I took the box down to clean it out and found a beautiful, moss-lined nest. Sadly it also contained the decaying bodies of three chicks that hadn't lived. So sad the sight; so bad the smell.

Still, box cleaned, nest and dead chicks composted and box repositioned for the next contenders.

Great tits

My personal war against local cats is stepping up as the great tits fly backwards and forwards from our nesting box in the garden feeding their chicks.

I had a good view of one of the adults yesterday as it chose to fly in through the open conservatory door and then spent several minutes flying into the glass.

Once it had dazed itself I was able to throw a tea towel over it and send it on its way. Feeding is back to normal now.

A friend gave me a niger seed feeder and now we have goldfinches in the garden regularly. So cute.

My son reminds me that the teat is the most common owl in Britain. He deserves shooting for that.

Learning Methods

As a group of us sat in my conservatory looking at garden birds the other day the conversation came round to how to tell a dunnock (hedge sparrow) from a house sparrow. I (because sadly I know this) explained the slightly greyer neck and head colouring. I pointed out the behavioural differences that led dunnocks to ground feed and house sparrows to prefer the hanging feeders. It's a bit complex because house sparrows will ground feed but dunnocks will not go on bird feeders full of nuts or seeds in any circumstances.

I pointed out a few examples. My friend said, 'I'll never forget that.'

If you like learning by show and tell you do tend to retain things taught that way rather well. Next time you see a dunnock you can replay the lesson, as it were, as an internal DVD and make the distinction.

It works for me too. Whist I enjoy the general raising of knowledge you get from lectures or books, when it comes to learning a new technique I need the demonstration, one-to-one. I am not particularly a technophobe but don't find it easy to teach myself new devices and software from manuals. On-screen tutorials are a little better. YouTube is currently raising my game in blues piano playing several fold.

My greatest advances in computer knowledge were made 1992-1997 at the hands of the wonderful Kelvin and Pete, two techies with a great bedside manner. The things they showed me I learned. Kelvin's particular skill was never to touch the mouse of his pupil. Everything that needed to be done you had to do yourself. He was very patient.

I am quite proud and smug when I manage to, for instance, load my digital camera pictures on to the computer. It took me a while to read the manual, load some software and then learn to use it.

But if someone had shown me. Ah well. The peril of working home alone.

Ornithology Corner

Gulls notoriously dislike confined spaces. They need quite a bit of room to take off and land so will very rarely land in a small, fenced or walled garden.

But they will risk it when they are cold and hungry. Fifteen black-headed gulls and one immature common gull have just finished fighting over some old bread and cake I soaked and threw out on the lawn. Feeding frenzy doesn't begin to describe it.

Nice pair of blackcaps on the bird feeder though.

Blackbirds

Blackbird chicks first appeared in our garden in the spring, staying close to feeding parents and going crazy for food. It is fun to watch them growing up. Two are learning the ropes right now, jumping up into bushes and finding grubs to eat. Picking insects off the underside of our garden chairs.

But they haven't mastered water. We have a bird bath. It is quite shallow so they can paddle in it. We also have an old water tank full of deeper water. I think one of the immatures reckoned that all water must be bird-bath depth. It stood on the edge of the tank. It leaned in. There was a splash. Then it had to spend ten minutes on the fence with its wings out, trying to get dry.

Jumping in without planning. It's over-rated.

May 1st

...and the housemartins are back. How was the journey guys and gals? Glad you felt it was worth returning after last year. Let the insect removal continue.

Lawns

Because Liz and I, when shaken or stirred, become a cocktail of laziness and ecological-awareness in pretty much equal measures, we don't look after our garden with any rigour. There are other qualities (mainly hers), but the lawn gets fewer cuts than most.

We do not remove dandelions, daisies, teasels, moss or any other green stuff from our lawn. It simply has to succumb to the mower once a fortnight from May to September, once a month in October, November, April and March and gets December - February off. Last year I let a teasel grow in the front garden and we scattered the seeds around a bit and harvested the flowers for Christmas decorations. Goldfinches visited the while. Teasels grow roots in year one and produce goldfinch food in year two. Then they die. The teasels not the goldfinches.

This morning the lawn, ten days uncut, is a riot of white and yellow. A few of our neighbours trim theirs with nail scissors.

I believe Liz should come out of this article with a better reputation than it is giving her. She is the gardener. I do big pruning, chopping things up, moving heavy objects, reaching high branches and going to the tip. She knows the names of plants and keeps the garden tidy. I get hay fever. She can escape me by spending time in the garden from June to August. But we both believe that anything which grows up through the lawn deserves a chance.

Dandelion leaves are great in salads.