Big garden bird watch

nutcutlet

higgy, Those are the first reed buntings I've seen this year. I don't know if it's because I haven't been looking or because they've only just come, I suspect the former, too much of a coincidence if they turned up for bird count day.

I did have a LBB I didn't recognise. The most noticeable thing about was that when a big gust of wind came and all was disturbed, every other bird flew up and this one kept on eating.

Fairygirl

Lancashire Lass wrote (see)

We are lucky 'cos our dunnocks DO come onto the bird feeder! We seem to have two that have paired up already, and a third one that is trying to get in on the act. Apparently they are the most promiscuous birds of any. The males often mate with several females and end up feeding chicks in several nests.

Naughty dunnocks...

Do you have one of the feeders with the cage round it LLass?  I've got one but it's not great - the cage needs to be bigger because the starlings and magpies can just shove their heads in and reach the food.  I've not seen dunnocks use it but I wonder if they'd go on one of those as there's a bit more 'perch' to sit on?  I'm sure they used the bird table regularly at a previous house.

nutcutlet

Dunnocks don't come to my feeders or the food I put on the ground. I know they live here though. One flew into the window last year at snow time and I had to do a rescue job.

Fairygirl

nut - that LBB would have been the 'great crested Verdun'. Never lets anything get in the way of it's dinner....

How strange that the dunnocks don't come to the food you put out. Mine seem to lurk nearby and are at the food before I'm half way up the back steps! Maybe yours need to go to Specsavers...

Type in my last post was rather odd...

flowersforbees

Wow Nutcutlet - that is amazing - wish I had all those birds in my garden,

but that's the price I pay for living in suburbia I suppose.  I have three dunnocks

in my garden, but they didn't make an appearance when I did my count, nor

did the two collared doves, though they come nearly every day.   Does anyone

else get really worried when regular birds don't appear?  I find myself looking

out of the window every half hour of the day, I get so worried a cat or hawk has

got them!  Higgy - just realised you live on the Levels - hope you're O.K. and

wonder if you can tell me where the 2 million starlings in your vicinity are going

to roost with the Levels flooded.

nutcutlet

Fairygirl, I think you're right about the great crested Verdun. I checked it in the bird book.

I'll make sure I enter it in the RSPB count

ffb we have got a little oasis here with about 10 houses, all well treed and bushed in an otherwise agricultural desert

Fairygirl

Yes nut - they had a box for ticking that said 'other' 

Which reminds me- in the section they had for visits by wildlife which were hibernating- they had hedgehogs and frogs etc- but no bats which I found really surprising. I had a little bat here regularly on  summer evenings but he didn't have a box for ticking 

ffb- at my last house we had tons of wildlife of all kinds which was wonderful, but the one I worried about, if I didn't see him, was the young robin who  had his little route to the feeders  and particular spots to sit in. 

nutcutlet

No bat box Fairy , that's sad. I have lots of those. Less last year though, I think those 2 very long cold winters thinned them out. 

Daintiness

2 blue tits

2 great tits 

3 long tailed tits

2 robins

2 blackbirds 

3 crows

5 wood pigeons

1 dunnock

2 chaffinches

1 magpie 

1 coal tit

1 great spotted woodpecker

and next door's ginger cat!!

Usually have more blue tits and great tits but then I haven't seen the wood pecker for ages.....of course my jay and collared doves turned up later  

Fairygirl

Did you tick the 'other' box for the cat Daintiness...

I've taken that too far haven't I?

I'm getting stir crazy with all this rain....