Sparrowhawk Kill

All of a sudden we have birds back in the garden. A month ago I only recorded 10 species during the week for the BTO Garden Bird Survey; this week 22 species. Among the returning winter visitors are a group of Redwings in my neighbour’s holly tree, a Chaffinch, a pair of Blackcaps, two Song Thrushes, a Mistle Thrush guarding any mistletoe berries in the area, the first Coal Tit for a while and, of course, a Sparrowhawk. In this case the Sparrowhawk, a male, grabbed one of a small influx of Blackbirds and after a short struggle, plucked it, before heading off somewhere to finish off eating it.

Gardener's Friend

This very tame Robin is never far away when I’m tending my veg plot. It’s one of a pair that follow me about looking to see if I’ve grubbed up any good insects.

Thirsty Birds

Setting up a trail-cam near the pond got a few nice pictures of birds coming in for a drink. I was hoping to film a hedgehog as I hadn’t seen ours yet this year, and I did get one shot but not nearby the camera - so that’s good news. This is one of our blackbirds and a house sparrow; both are nesting nearby.

Jackdaw in a Breakfast Cereal Box

This Jackdaw (Coloeus monedula) is on its way to the Vale Wildlife Hospital at Beckford. It is an adult bird, but a small one and not in good condition, even I think before the cat brought it in. Luckily it had managed to get away from the cat and didn’t seem too badly hurt, although it was unable to fly. I’m not sure how the cat got it as while there are plenty of jackdaws around, including nesting in the surrounding trees, they rarely come to the ground unless there are scraps there (which there weren’t this morning). The bird seemed in heavy moult, so maybe it was already grounded? Hoping the vets at the hospital can help it recover.

Siskin - Carduelis spinus

Up until the last 12 months I had barely ever seen Siskin around the village, but during last summer/autumn we had them several times in the garden and again this spring. Usually they are up in the birch trees, but this male dropped down to take some sunflower hearts, until it was chased off by the blue tits. A very smart bird.

#644 Siskin (Carduelis spinus)

Fatpeckers

Activity at the bird feeders has slowed down since the weather improved. The tits have become rare visitors, but some birds are still dropping in for a quick energy boost. The Starlings are very local, they have been roosting noisily under the roof eaves for the last weeks and now seem to be shaping up to nest there. This Great Spotted Woodpecker is a less frequent visitor to the fat balls, but is always around the area too, drumming up in the surrounding trees most mornings.

#115 Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

#125 Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Goldfinches are one of the most frequent year-round birds in the garden. In the last 3 years there’s only 4 weeks where I did not record them at least once, usually during the May-June when their numbers are at their lowest. During September-October flocks. sometimes up to 100-strong, come to the silver birches around the garden. They are also consistently around in the winter visiting the birches and quite often the feeders for niger or sunflower hearts. Since January there have only been 3-5 around, but usually any day now at the end of March there is also a short-lived peak in numbers as the finches gather in pre-breeding flocks of 30-40 birds before separating to nest.

Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus, #353)

I have a couple of immaculate cock pheasants visiting the garden at the moment, this one and one with a ring (round the neck). Looking back at my BTO Garden Birdwatch records they are regular attendees in March & early April, only occasionally joined by female birds. I’m not sure if they are looking for food, or spreading out looking for breeding territories. They skipped year last year, I thought perhaps because they were scared off by our cat, so it’s good to have them back this year.

Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus, #6)

Another unsuccessful attempt at trapping moths last night, as the temperature dropped well below freezing, and few insects around too. There are still a few blackbirds and redwings about, roosting in next door’s holly tree, which are probably what attracted this female Sparrowhawk. It then perched up for a while to preen and enjoy the evening sunshine, before heading of again in search of supper,.

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs,#270)

This Chaffinch, getting to grips with a sunflower seed, is the first I’ve seen actually down at the feeders this winter. Especially on the colder days there’s a lot more birds around the garden; Blue, Great, Long-tailed and a single Coal Tit, which darts in to grab a sunflower heart when it can. The small gang of House Sparrows are back, having as usual, left to forage elsewhere during the Autumn. The mature Holly tree next door has a flock of a dozen or so Redwings stripping its berries, more this year than usually, also several Blackbirds and a Song Thrush. There’s a Mistle Thrush, which jealously guards the clumps of mistletoe in the surrounding area. The lunchtime roost of Woodpigeons is up to about 10 individuals now, and large groups of starlings are flying over morning and evening heading to a local roost. Many more birds than a few weeks back.

Kestrel

I do sometimes get them overhead, but this is the first time I saw a Kestrel (Falco subbuteo, #589) actually perched in the trees around the garden. This is an adult male. maybe looking for some easy prey such as a young bird to take back to its own chicks. Or maybe he’s just enjoying a change of scenery - we do often have kestrels in the fields around the village. This kestrel is not the only interesting falcon lately, as a Hobby, being mobbed by the local House Martins, flew over during the weekend. Whether a hobby, sparrowhawk or indeed this kestrel, which had attracted the attention of some starlings, it’s the alarm calls of smaller birds that first alert you they are around.

#589 Kestrel (Falco subbuteo)

Fat-balls for Two

The Blue Tit family recently fledged from next door’s tit box are round and about all day, sometimes up to five of them at the same time taking a break from eating aphids for some fat-ball. These two juvenile birds were pretty tame, so I was able to sit close to the feeder and get some nice photos.

Catted!

The cat caught this just-fledged blackbird the other evening. I freed it pretty quickly, and put it on the shed roof, but the bird was couldn’t fly and after a while its parents gave up trying to encourage it to move. One wing was clearly damaged. After keeping it overnight the bird was still alive and quite perky, so I took it to Vale Wildlife Hospital, which is just up the road. At 10.00 AM on Saturday morning, the chick was the 7th “catted” bird to be brought in that day. It tuned out the wing was broken, and likely would not mend easily, so there’s probably not much that could be done. Young ground feeding birds, such as blackbirds, which can’t yet fly very well are easy prey for cats, so it’s a grim time of year for nature loving cat owners.

After being a bit quiet for birds lately, the garden is now full of families: blue tits, long-tailed tits, bullfinches one day, robins, noisy starlings, jackdaws and magpies. So far there are no other bird casualties, though the cat did catch and kill one of the grey squirrel pups. As well as cats there are a variety of avian predators the birds have to look out for, with sparrowhawk, red kites, buzzards, kestrel (a new species for the list) and even a wandering peregrine passing over in the last few days.

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos, #403)

Song Thrush is really a bird of this season in the garden, singing loudly every morning. They are more heard than seen, as when they are on the ground they are often skulking around the corners of the garden. They appear in January, sing from February, then after breeding totally disappear in August, only to return again in the mid-winter. Looking at the BTO Garden Birdwatch data this is a pretty typical pattern. The data also shows that there is a strong decline in the number of gardens where song thrushes are reported, down from 45-50% in the early ‘90s, to less than 20% now, so we’re very lucky to still have them.

#306 Green Woodpecker

Happy New Year 2020: Was great to get a photo of this Green Woodpecker that was digging around in next door’s lawn for a while this morning. While they are always around in the village, they are heard more often than seen, and seen flying through much more often than perching obligingly on the ground like this one. A nice garden bird to start the year with.

#306 Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)

Two Ticks

I have seen Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula, #507) in the garden previously, but not since I started the list. So it was good to have a pair of them turn up and stop long enough for me to get a photo of the female. Surprisingly, according to BTO Garden Birdwatch data, there is a peak in bullfinches visiting gardens during June, so these were bang on cue. Sightings then drop right down through the late summer and autumn, and pick up a little in the winter and spring; June though is the top month.

The other tick is a tick, in this case courtesy of the cat. I believe it is a Hedgehog Tick (Ixodes hexagonus, #506), which is the commonest tick picked up by cats. It’s certainly a hard tick from that family. This big white one is likely full of blood; cat or hedgehog. I’m looking forward to seeing the hedgehog sometime; there are some around the village but as our garden is surrounded by walls, access is a bit of a problem..

#507 Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)

#506 Hedgehog Tick (Ixodes hexagonus)

#6 Sparrowhawk

I was happy to get this shot of 'Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) on next-door’s roof, as usually I only see them in flight, either soaring high over the garden, or bombing through on the hunt. This female is the first I’ve seen around the garden for several weeks, since a mail that hung around for a while back in November.. There were a few other new bird arrivals yesterday, such as a trio of Lesser Redpolls (a bit scarce this winter), a cock pheasant (a regular visitor most winters, but not this year),.a new female Blackcap, a small party of Redwings (the first for a few weeks) and group of Blackbirds present in the morning. Perhaps this is a sign of the season, and some migration going on.

#6 Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

Winter Bird Survey

Last weekend saw my final survey visit for the new BTO English Winter Bird Survey. This survey covers my regular Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) km square just outside Broadway, Worcestershire. Due to the recent warm weather it was more like an early Breeding Bird Survey, with resident birds like song thrush, robin, wren, chaffinch, linnet and skylarks singing everywhere. There were some winter redwings still around and a fly-over siskin, but due to the lack of leaves I saw more of the resident birds than I often do when I visit in April. Bullfinch, marsh tit and treecreeper are some of the less common residents on this square that were showing well. Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers are easiest seen at this time of year, but one seen calling and drumming on a dead tree is a rare sighting here or in indeed most other places in UK.

I liked doing the survey on my regular square and seeing different birds there, but doing the expected 4 visits was a problem as short winter days make it hard to do the survey around other weekend activities, especially in the pre-Christmas period. As it was I only managed the two visits in December and February, but I do think this was enough to accurately survey the wintering bird population on the site.

Murmuration at Kemerton

I was in the area, so dropped into Kemerton Lake NR, a reserve near Tewkesbury. Turned out that there were quite a few other visitors there to see a good-sized murmuration of starlings that come into roost in the reed beds. Apparently there’s up to 25,000 birds in the roost. They put up a great show wheeling around in a fast-moving flock, trying to keep away from a couple of hungry sparrowhawks, before dropping into the reeds en-masse for the night. As well as the starling spectacle there were also lots of ducks, including this beautiful male smew - a rare winter visitor to these parts from the Russian taiga. With all this, plus kingfisher and a calling water rail, that’s pretty impressive birding for somewhere right on my doorstep.

Starling Murmuration

Drake Smew, Kemerton Lakes (photo by A Rees)

One year of BTO Garden Birdwatch

It's the anniversary of my starting the BTO Garden Birdwatch, logging all the birds in the garden over the course of a year. As well as birds I’ve recorded butterflies, mammals & amphibians. These graphics are off the BTO site, showing the frequency of the most common birds that actually use the garden (pure fly-overs are not counted).

Surprisingly out of the 47 bird species I recorded during the year, only four were seen absolutely every week: Woodpigeon, Blue Tit, Goldfinch & House Sparrow. The rest of the top 10 were Robin which only missed one week (reporting rate = 98%), Blackbird with reporting rate of 96%, Collared Dove, Jackdaw and Great Tit all on 92%, then quite a big drop to Wren at 75%. Most of these species disappeared during late Summer / early Autumn, when the species count was at it’s lowest.

At the other end of the scale six birds only showed once: Fieldfare during winter snows, Whitethroat, Siskin & Hawfinch during Spring migration and Grey Wagtail & Lesser Whitethroat also migrants during the late summer.

Birds over 1 Year

Butterflies over 1 Year