New era

I've been thinking about getting a proper camera for a long time, and I've finally done it. I served my digiscoping apprenticeship and decided it was about time I jumped on the DSLR bandwagon.

These are early days. I haven't got a clue of which settings to use; I just know I need to get close. It's not been hugely successful so far, but it's great fun - feels like the photographic equivalent of go-karting!

Now I just need to find some nice, cooperative birds.

And so, at The Lodge this morning...

Blue Tit. Some nestbox inspection going on


Robin preening

Frosty ivy berries



Dunnock singing

Bramble leaves

Wouldn't be complete without some sunlit leaves, would it?

And from yesterday...

Greylag Geese

Bullfinches munching on ash keys

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM, Extender EF 1.4x II

Brambling

Darren heard a Brambling this morning. It wasn't in the garden, it was across the road, but I think that's just about allowable for the garden list. Anything seen or heard whilst you're on the premises.

Of course, I didn't hear it, being indisposed at the time. Never mind - I'm sure I'll see one in the garden with the Chaffinches soon, and D will be out in the middle of nowhere. It's a chance you take, isn't it?

Sketches

This is sort of off-topic, but I've started another blog which contains some sketches and things. I'm trying to draw more, you see. Above: my house keys, an everydaymatters challenge.

Big Garden Birdwatch

Like a good RSPB member, I did my Big Garden Birdwatch count. From 8.10 to 9.10am, I stood at the dining room window and watched what went on outside in the garden.

BGBW isn't complicated: peer out of the window for an hour and count the max numbers of each species you see at once. Here are my counts:

• Blue Tit: 7
• Jackdaw: 7
• Chaffinch: 7
• Great Tit: 5
• Dunnock: 2
• Coal Tit: 2
• Long-tailed Tit: 2
• Greenfinch: 2
• Robin: 2
• Stock Dove: 1
• Wren: 1
• Great Spotted Woodpecker: 1

They only tell part of the story, though. The two Robins did not try to kill each other, as is the norm, but were clearly a pair, as they fed (on porridge oats) side by side. I think a nestbox will be required. However, the Coal Tits were intent on chasing each other round and round; they are very territorial.

The Long-tailed Tits were a bit unexpected as I haven't often seen them in the garden. They made a beeline for the fat-block feeder which makes me wonder if they've become more regular visitors while I've been at work.

I quite often hear Stock Doves cooing from nearby, but it was a nice surprise to see one sitting in the ash tree at the bottom of the garden for a couple of minutes.

The Blue Tits were particularly hard to count, as there was constant movement between the bush and the sunflower seed feeder. At first, I'd only managed to count four at once, which seemed a bit poor, but reinforcements arrived shortly after to boost numbers.

The last bird to add itself to the list was the woodpecker. Good to see he's still a regular visitor, enjoying hacking the fat-block to pieces. They cost £1.99 each but I have a cunning plan to make my own.

Still no House Sparrows, though, never mind Starlings...

Norfolk

Lesser Yellowlegs, Thornham Harbour

Male Goldeneye

Female Goldeneye

The resident female Scaup at Snettisham

The Wash at Snettisham

Thornham Harbour

Redshank

Rock Pipit

Thornham Harbour

digiscoped photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

It's snowed!

What's left of the snow

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Sheep

Smile!

Last week's winds brought lots of trees and branches crashing to the ground. The Manx Loghtans weren't bothered - it just means a tasty snack for them.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Eversholt

This morning I had a whistlestop tour of some Beds birding sites. The only one I took any photos at was Eversholt Lake, near Woburn. There, 11 Goosander (nine drakes, two ducks) were busy flirting - there wasn't much fishing being done at all.

Some of the 11 Goosanders present

Eversholt Lake

Barn, 1871 vintage

digiscoped photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Veg talk

One of the joys of having a biggish garden is that we have room to grow our own vegetables. It's a bit of a cliche but there really is nothing like growing your own stuff. Breaking open a pea pod to reveal the juicy green gems inside (hopefully without too many caterpillars), pulling up potatoes and shaking off the earth before taking them inside to cook, and tasting carrots that you've grown with your own bare hands are all great experiences.

It'll also be great to be busy outdoors - ideal for hearing birds calling as they fly over, and I expect Skylarks will be the main source of 'noise pollution' come spring. Plus, you get Robins sitting on your spade handle, don't you?

Hopefully, we'll be able to grow loads of stuff without digging up the whole garden. This year is going to be a bit of a learning curve, as I haven't really grown stuff myself before (though I used to 'help' on my mum's allotment when I was younger). Still, throwing a few seeds in the
ground and waiting for them to sprout can't be that difficult... can it?

OK, so this is 'A garden bird blog', and I'm writing about vegetables, not birds, but to me it's all part of the same thing. Another way of enjoying the garden, and I daresay that birds might help themselves to some of the crop, too. Which is OK - up to a point...

Wind in the Willows

One of the things our garden is lacking is cover. Apart from an unidentified bush (which has pink flowers on it at the moment), and a couple of straggly buddleias, there isn't anything much. I'm sure we'd have more birds in the garden if there was a decent hedge, as all we have is fencing.

This is the reason why I've planted some willows at the back. They were kindly donated by a friend who has a garden full of them (it's like a tree nursery) so I just shoved them in the ground and we're hoping for the best.

As you can see from the photo, they haven't died yet, so fingers crossed a few will make it and grow into proper trees.

Not far from home

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Brambles

Had to get out at lunchtime as the sun had made its first appearance for a very long time...

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

On the move

In case anyone wondered, I'm still alive.


I've moved house, that's all. Here's the garden. As you can see, it's quite big and open. I can't remember the garden list so far, but after a month it does include Peregrine and House Sparrow!

House Sparrow seems to be a major rarity just here, as we've only had two records of a single female bird.

Green Woodpeckers are somewhat more frequent, and a male Great Spotted visits every day for seed.


Up to five Pheasants also visit daily and are making a bit of a mess under the feeders.

Here are some of our noisier neighbours.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Wild chickens

Before we moved in, we discussed possibilities for the garden. A vegetable patch is a must, since there’s so much room, and I also quite fancied the idea of having some chickens. Who could resist the sight of some pretty hens strutting around the garden, looking rustic, charming and producing fresh eggs? What fun!

But then the Pheasants arrived. These are our wild, long-tailed chicken substitutes. Having invited themselves in from the surrounding fields, they now visit a couple of times per day to potter around on the ground below the feeders, hoovering up spilled seed.

They perch precariously on the garden fence to start with, before plopping down onto the lawn in a rather ungainly fashion, where they get to work. Four females together is the norm, and a splendid male puts in an appearance every so often.

Though it’s good that they’re picking up stuff that falls on the floor, the scratching of their feet and the pecking of their sharp beaks isn’t really doing the grass any good.

We won’t have to worry about mowing the lawn from spring, because if the Pheasants keep going at the rate they are, there will only be moss left by then.

But they’re characterful and comical, so they can stay. Just hope that we aren’t overrun with Pheasant poults later on.

Professor Yaffle

The green woodpecker has been some of my favourite birds for a long time, probably dating back to when I received a large poster from the YOC (or RSPB Wildlife Explorers, as they’re now known).

Across the road from here is a large area of parkland, which looks spot-on for Green Woodies, so it’s not really that surprising that at least two have come to our garden so far (one male, one female).

We see the Green Woodpeckers in our garden perhaps a couple of times a week, when they spend long periods hopping around on the lawn, digging vigorously.

Though they nest in holes in trees, like other woodpeckers, that’s not where they find the majority of their food. The green feathers are a clue that they spend a huge amount of time on the ground, foraging for ants. The long, strong beak is used as a chisel to dig in search of ant colonies, while the long, sticky tongue (which coils up inside the bird’s head) fishes the ants out.

They’re really beautiful, striking birds, with a pale grey-blue iris, which gives them a slightly reptilian look, grass-green wings, red crown and a moustache which is all black in females, but with a red centre in males.

Greedy birds

It’s a good job we’re not feeding (expensive) sunflower hearts to our garden birds. I filled up a 1.5 litre feeder this morning, and now, at 3.11pm, it’s very nearly empty! It’s a pretty impressive feat, as we don’t get many Greenfinches (which will sit at a feeder and gobble away until they’ve had their fill), with the vast majority of feeder-users being tits, which grab one seed at a time. Will we buy more feeders? Not sure - it could be a bottomless pit!

Goldfinches

I’ve just watched the first Goldfinches (since we moved in) grace our garden. A trio perched in the bird bush for only a few seconds before moving on again.

It would be great to see them back again soon – Goldfinches do go for black sunflower seeds sometimes, as I found in my last garden. Lots of people put out niger seed (or nyger/nyjer, however you want to spell it – it’s teasel seed, basically) to attract Goldies, but it’s expensive stuff.

The specially-designed feeders exclude birds other than Goldfinches and Siskins so unless you pull in Goldfinches, you’re probably onto a loser. I have seen little sample-sized niger feeders in the RSPB shop, which seem like a good idea to start with.

It would probably be more fun – and more aesthetically-pleasing - to grow some real teasels in the flowerbeds. When they’re in flower, insects go wild for them, too, so you get a double pay-back.

Mega!

We’ve just had a real garden rarity. Small, streaked and brown, it skulked in the middle of the bush, revealing itself a couple of times only during its brief stay.

The identity of the bird? A female House Sparrow! The nearest sparrows are about a mile away from our patch, so I guess that it was swept along in a gang of Chaffinches (which are quite numerous at the moment).

It’s gone now – wonder when the next one will be, and whether it’ll bring a friend?

I would think that the reason there are no sparrows here is that there are no nest sites. We’re a bit lacking in hedges and I don’t know whether the eaves of the house are accessible. If we get more sparrows, we’ll buy a ‘sparrow terrace’ (three nestboxes all joined together – sparrows are colonial nesters) and see what happens.

Great Spot

For a few days now, we’ve been visited by a male Great Spotted Woodpecker a few times a day. He bounces over the garden, clings to the side of the [concrete] washing line post, and then makes the final leg of his journey to position himself on the seed feeder.

This woodpecker is definitely the messiest eater so far. There’s a constant shower of seed fragments while he picks out the bits he wants, and flings the rest all over the place. Hence the presence of Chaffinches, Robins, Pheasants and Collared Doves on the ground underneath.

Saving for a rainy day

The most popular food I’ve been putting out in the garden is sunflower seed. None of your pretentious ‘sunflower hearts’, just plain old, shell-on black sunflower seeds.

As a result, we’ve been inundated by tits. I’ve counted up to eight Blue Tits and five Great Tits at once, which suggests that up to 80 Blue and 50 Great Tits might be visiting during the day!

Those are pretty staggering numbers, but there’s no real way to check it out, unless we can tempt a local ringer up here to try and catch some of them. And I fear that it’ll take more than a promise of ‘lots of Blue Tits’ to do that – we need some Bramblings or something tasty to make it worthwhile…

The Blues and Greats aren’t quite as interesting to watch as the Coal Tits, however. At least two have been visiting so far (probably more). They spend all their time whizzing to and from the sunflower seed feeder, making lightning-fast raids to grab a seed and then flying off.

Unlike the Blue and Great Tits, the Coal Tits spend quite a large percentage of their time looking for places to hide their seeds. Watching them for a while reveals where they stash their booty: between wooden fence panels, in buddleia seed heads, inside flowers, among the twigs of small shrubs, in tree bark and in the ground.

Will they remember where any of them are, when the weather gets tough? I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing sunflowers sprouting in strange places in spring, but that’s all part of the fun.

Little Owl

Was just brushing my teeth when I heard the ‘yapping’ of a Little Owl. Had to yell for Darren so he could hear it too, and then we both saw it in the ash tree at the back. Bit surprised it’s taken this long to see one from the garden, really.

Psst

Here’s the scene: I’m in, Darren’s out birding around the local area. While 'scoping from an upstairs window, I spot a pale blob in the middle of the field at the back of the house. It’s a falcon, on the ground, and on a kill.

Hmmm. That’s not a Kestrel – back not red enough. And I can see the ‘moustache’ on its face. Got to be either a Merlin or a Peregrine, but there’s nothing to give a sense of scale out there in the field.

Ah – here come some Canada Geese over low – will they spook the falcon? Yes, there it goes, up into the air for a few seconds, and it’s clearly a Peregrine.

If Darren’s not back in time to see this, I’m going to be in trouble!

…

Well, he missed it by about ten minutes. It took off with its kill (a Woodpigeon?) and flew right by the house, before heading off south. Too bad – you go out and you miss what’s in the garden.

It turned out that he’d trumped me by seeing a Curlew whilst on his travels, and that’s too bad, too, I suppose. Hmph.

Frosty day

Local residents: Corn Buntings

Took a walk from home on a frosty morning.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995