Wednesday, 21 November 2007

A day off work today (man flu) enabled me to do a 5hr garden birdwatch. With all the feeders full, I sat down with a mug of tea at 11.00am. The MARSH TIT was a bonus bird, not seen in the garden since the 10th, it was joined by COAL, BLUE, and GREAT TIT. The GOLD, CHAFF, and GREENFINCH, made the most of the sunflower hearts. What they dropped was picked up by up to 21 COLLARED DOVES, a couple of ROBINS and A DUNNOCK. The fat blocks attracted a peak of 4 STARLINGS, a JACKDAW and a MAGPIE. The only BLACKBIRD to come in, used the pond, as did a GOLDCREST. It is a bit concerning that just one HOUSE SPARROW came in, no more the 30 or so that used to arrive. At one point there were 2 female and a male GS WOODPECKER, all on their own feeder. Late on, a NUTHATCH arrived at the sunflower hearts. Two attacks from the sparrowhawk were unproductive, the last at around 2:30. A good number of species for the day, with another 12 flyover, or in the vicinity of the garden. FIELDFARE and REDWING were only yards away in an apple tree, feeding on the fruit. The former of these two has never entered my garden, I think i'll stick some apples in the elder tree and see what happens.

2 comments:

Kingsdowner said...

At one point there were 2 female and a male GS WOODPECKER, all on their own feeder.

That must have looked good! What are the ingredients for a good GSW feeder? We have the birds flying above the garden but never come in.

Good idea about spiking apples in the trees!

Warren Baker said...

Steve, when I say their ''own'' feeder, I should of said they had grabbed one feeder each!! The male doesn't tolerate feeding alongside the females, but the females will tolerate each other - for a while. I have fat feeders, peanut feeders and sunflower heart feeders, all under a cob tree.