Up close and personal with garden birds

With the tree seed (alder, birch etc) finally running out, Siskins are flooding into gardens. This male was a 'control' - a bird already ringed somewhere else when we caught it

Here's a female Siskin - less colourful but still beautiful. See how fine the bill is for getting those seeds

Another male, the first I caught in my garden

Here's another tree seed-munching finch, a Lesser Redpoll

and a female Goldfinch

Here's a Nuthatch, the third I've caught in the garden

I 'retrapped' her 15 days later. Here's a close-up of the claws that mean Nuthatches can climb down trees headfirst

I originally caught this Treecreeper on New Year's Day 2012, so it was good to see it's still going strong

A Goldcrest, Europe's smallest bird, weighs about 5g (the same as 5 paperclips)

And a male Great Spotted Woodpecker

Read more about bird ringing in the UK on the BTO website

Mr and Mrs Nutter

Female Nuthatch

Male Nuthatch

I still remember the first time I saw a Nuthatch, at Forge Valley Woods in North Yorkshire. I was 11 years old (and I saw them there again 20 years on!). I ringed one Nuthatch a couple of years ago but I never dreamed I'd be catching them in my garden...

(If I'd thought about it properly, I'd have photographed their bottoms for comparison - males have bright reddish-brown feathers around the bum)

Though I've seen them in the garden a couple of times through winter, as part of roving tit flocks, I saw a male which seemed to be collecting mud and thought how nice it would be to catch and ring one at home. But I was very surprised when first a female turned up in my net, and then a couple of days later a male. 

Excellent birds!

Flamborough Head

I've been on holiday in East Yorkshire for a week. We stayed in glamorous Flamborough, on the sticky-out bit halfway up on the right-hand side.

The birds were alright, though. There were tons of migrants early on - Goldcrests and Redwings were in every bush and every scrap of hedge - but they all cleared off by Wednesday. But not before we'd seen two Pallas's Warblers (Darren found one of them) and a Yellow-browed on Flamborough Head.

However, I won't dwell on our two failed attempts to see the Dusky Warbler at Scarborough, or the way things went really rather quiet after midweek.

There were other compensations, however... watching two Roe Deer jump a barbed wire fence; seeing the last Gannet chick of the year still sitting fluffily on the sheer cliff at Bempton; a skein of Pink-footed Geese arriving from over the sea; a handful of Ring Ouzels (including one picked up dead near the lighthouse); watching a Jack Snipe try to land in a gorse bush, a Redstart and a small flock of Bramblings in the hedge right outside our window.

Migrant Wheatear at North Landing

This first-winter male Redstart appeared in the hedge outside our luxury accommodation. The chalet, I mean

And this was the first Brambling I'd ringed!

Here's one Mark caught earlier... a Lesser Whitethroat, possibly of the central Asian race halimodendri

Here's the lighthouse

And the cobble beach at South Landing

Flowers on a bench at t'North

Thornwick Bay

Dawn

Revisited Forge Valley Woods, where I saw my first-ever Nuthatches 20 years ago!

Somehow, these jokes have raised a lot of money for charity...

Lovely decor in the chalet

You'd think they could at least spell YORKSHIRE correctly

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM or Canon Powershot A640

The best birds in the world. Ever.

I'm back from five nights away on a ringing course. I was a bit worried before I went (it sounded full-on and rather intense) but once I found my feet and got the hang of how the procedures worked, I really enjoyed myself.

When a person is tired of Wrynecks, they are tired of life.

Wryneck!

Wryneck!!

TWO Wrynecks!

Not only are they astonishingly beautiful, they also do crazy things (video not mine, but ours did similar things. The birds aren't hurt; it's a threat display intended to confuse a would-be predator).

We were too busy to take many photos, but here is a small selection...

Male Bearded Tit!

Fabulous juvenile Whinchat

Female Nuthatch

Repeat-offender Tufted Duck - caught in a duck trap that works on the same principle as a lobster pot

Migrant warblers eat loads of berries. This is what ringers fuel up with at the pub...

We also caught Yellow Wagtails, House and Sand Martins, Swallows, Redstarts, Nightingales, Grasshopper, Willow, Sedge, Reed and Garden Warblers, Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats, a Mistle Thrush, a few Wrens, a Goldfinch, a mercifully small number of Blue and Great Tits, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a load of other stuff I can't remember...

Oh, and while I was away, garden bird number 99 made it onto the list - Wigeon!

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D