Our Garden Birds

[SueA]

It's awful when you see dead baby birds isn't it Bess , very sad.
I don't put the infra-red camera out every night now because I do tend to get hundreds of photos of magpies & wood pigeons strutting up & down in front of it, I was lucky I'd put it out that day the jay visited, I caught it on camera a couple more mornings & saw it in the garden but then a magpie started frightening it off whenever it landed & I haven't seen it for a few days now.

[whisker]

Either crows or magpies, I'd say, were the "murderers". I have both in my garden, and I would not put it past them. There are very large trees outside my house and at four or five in the morning, I can be woken up by the most blood-curdling screeches, that could be dog, fox or any other kind of animal. As I listen for a bit, I realize they are my feathered friends in the trees.

[Rosie]

We have wood pigeons nesting in the Leylandii hedge, apparently the squabs leave the nest before they can really fly so I'm glad we didn't go ahead and get a moggy. We'll deal with the mices another way

[whisker]

Cats would have been a bigger danger, rosie.

[dianthus]

The grey wagtails are back in my garden. They prefer splashing about in the river, when it is low, but the kids must have disturbed it earlier, down in the river, so it flitted about the back garden for a little while.... lovely

[grindle]

I think I might have had a sparrowhawk down yesterday, there were a lot of suspicious feathers round the feeder where the pigeons sit, too high up for the cats

I get them in my garden too dianthus feisty little things aren't they I do like watching them though, I used to get the yellow ones at my old house

[dianthus]

Two summers ago, I watched a sparrowhawk have his pigeon lunch from my conservatory. It returned over several days, to carry on. I left it be, as to remove the carcass, would only mean the hawk would kill another bird.

The yellow wagtails are very rare in the UK, these days, grindle . I mistakenly thought this was a yellow, until I checked on the RSPB site. I'm under a mile from the Park, so the habitat fits all three species.

[sweetpea]

all nature in the raw I suppose.
yesterday at 0600 the noise by the back feeder was very loud. A couple of baby jackdaws demanding food from their parents who were busy demolishing the fatballs and generally squabbling amongst themselves.
This morning around the same time only one youngster and parent and then the youngster was left on its own. it did fly off eventually.
Very interesting to watch all the same.
had a grey squirrel having a go at the peanut feeder yesterday but didn't get the camera as it was already a bit suspicious of me watching.

[dianthus]

On Monday afternoon, and again, yesterday, I've a baby wren darting about behind and in the tubs on the patio. I knew he was aware I was there, but the dampness had provided him with a feast of insects. He kept returning for further helpings. He is so much smaller than his mum, who has spent the previous winter and spring nearby.

[whisker]

Lovely see a baby wren! It must be tiny.

[dianthus]

Jun 30, 2016 15:14:25 GMT whisker said:

Lovely see a baby wren! It must be tiny.

It is..... about 2 1/2" long and 3/4" deep in the body

[SueA]

The sparrowhawk got one of the babies from the conifer tree next door but one today. I was out in the garden & heard all the birds going mad especially the blackbirds but couldn't see anything, I could hear what sounded like hissing but it wasn't the cats as next minute a sparrowhawk emerged with a baby bird in it's talons followed by a similar sized bird in hot pursuit so maybe it was a woodpigeon or collared dove. The hawk took it's lunch into the oak tree.

[SueA]

The woodpecker was back today! Well maybe not the same on as last year, it looked like it might be a youngster but it stayed for a while & tried all the different feeders:-

[grindle]

great picture SueA I'd love to see one in my garden

[SueA]

I think I've only seen one twice in the garden grindle, I'm always stunned when I see them.It tried the fatballs & peanuts & the hanging fatball feeder & then flew into the oak tree. I was watching it through binoculars & it was holding on to a slightly loose partly snapped branch & pecking at it - above it's head - I was thinking 'you might be in for a shock if you peck too hard' !