As its been quite cold the past few days, birds are beginning to come arrive at the feeders in some numbers now, but still not in the numbers of past winters, especially so the finches, of which there were peaks of 5 GOLDFINCH, 2 GREENFINCH and 7 CHAFFINCH, past winters have had double figures of each!
The most numerous species coming in are the BLUE TITS, a peak count of 15 were recorded, but there are probably a 100 of them at least coming in throughout the day, there are fewer GREAT TITS, a peak of 5 were seen, and fewer still COAL TITS with a peak count of 2, the Marsh Tit hasn't been in this month, and prefers the feeding station over at the lakes - turncoat!
BLACKBIRDS are now coming in from the woods and fields, mainly to feast on my ''Waxwing'' apples, 6 were chomping there way through the now nicely ripe fruit. ROBINS and DUNNOCKS both flit about the garden, 2 each of those were seen, only 4 COLLARED DOVES turned up, well down on the 15 - 20 birds I normally get.
The star bird today was the return of the GREEN WOODPECKER, only the third garden record for this species, 2 GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS, 3 JAYS, 1 MAGPIE, 2 JACKDAWS, 3 WOODPIGEONS, 2 WRENS, a NUTHATCH and a SONGTHRUSH made the garden list to 19 species in the 2 hours I watched, but not a single Starling or House Sparrow was seen :-(
Looking at my stats for the Garden birds, it shows that the 11 year species total has crept up to 54, with this years list being at 36, this is the joint best yearly total along with 2006, 2010 and 2011, surely i'll get one more species in before the end of the year to take the top spot :-)
The 11 year combined December total so far is on 35, the top month for bird species, on a par with the other winter months of January and February, surprisingly April and July are the next most busy moths, both having a combined December total of 34 species :-)
Unfortunately the brilliant winter sunshine didn't last into the afternoon, so my photographic efforts were a bit lacking in quality, I especially miffed at not getting a photo of the Green Woodpecker, I was just 2 meters from it, but it was obscured by branches!
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| Robin |
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| Coal Tit |
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| Songthrush |
5 comments:
Warren.
Pity you couldn't get out today although your garden watch was pretty impressive, It is strange hot we get different species in different area's or how numbers differ.My larges coung today was the House Sparrow, today was a high count for me at 18, most visits here are always in double figures.
You good number of Blue Tits of 15 is like you say about 100 coming though. Surveys have been carried out and it is thought that for every Blue Tit there are 10 visiting or passing through, so you could have had anything up to 150 today. Which ever it is, it is a good total.
Hard luck with missing out on the Green Woodpecker photo's, next time.
Let's hope the waxings find your apples soon :-)
A close Green Woodpecker would be nice but I bet you would swap for a Waxwing shot. I seem to keep bumping into them at the moment, although I am not complaining.
I saw only a fleeting glimpse of a couple of our waxwings this year. They come through like marauders and leave as soon as the easy loot is gone. Still, they are beautiful if you are lucky enough to see them. Hope you lure them in.
nice trio
Lovely, seasonal Robin as is your header photo. Nice to see the Song Thrush, I don't see them in my garden as much as I used to.
I have apples speared on the branches of my apple tree and also my ornamental cherry to try and attract those elusive Waxwings that have been in the area all week but no luck so far.
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