This year I hung some loosely-tied bundles of wool scraps in the garden for the birds to take as nesting material. The biggest collectors by far were the goldfinches! Goldfinches are late starters compared to other garden birds, making delicate wool-lined nests towards the slender tips of branches. The wool tops were feltmaking leftovers, and […]
Goldfinches like my weedy lawn! Here’s a small charm of them shredding dandelion heads – they seem to be gathering them too? See this one gripping the stalk with one foot, whilst it rapidly demolishes the head – this use of the feet in feeding is characteristic of goldfinches, and was exploited to teach them […]
We’ve had a family of robins in the garden for the last few days, taking advantage of our feeders and foliage. There are three fledglings – one more advanced that hops about and helps itself, the other two still persistant beggars, trying it on with any passer by! It must be hard work for the […]
After much anxiety over the fate of our blackbirds’ nest we spotted this baby blackbird in the garden yesterday, and another glimpse this morning! It is not very pretty, all legs and beak, and is being kept well out of sight in the shrubbery for now, with Mum diving in at regular intervals with a […]
Last Friday morning I spotted our blackbird’s nest lying on the lawn under the dense laurel that it had been built in – disaster! Although we have never actually seen the nest before we have been watching Mrs Blackbird for weeks to’ing and fro’ing with materials, and then more recently food, and although only 30-40% […]
We spotted the first baby bird of the season on our lawn this weekend – a baby robin, how sweet! Managed to get a snap of its parent shoving food into its gape… We are expecting to see baby blackbirds any day now – the parents are hard at work gathering food. The breeding season […]
Today I saw a baby squirrel being carried in its mother’s mouth! At first I couldn’t make sense of the sight, dreading that the squirrel’s burden would be one of our blackbird’s nestlings. But no, it was a small upside down mammal – and not a rat, or a sleepy doormouse, but a compliant baby […]
This time last year I found what I believe to be a chaffinch nest, lying at the foot of railings that separated a school playing field from the pavement. Its spider silk anchors must have failed, as it appeared to have been blown out of a nearby tree. Not only do spiders make good food […]
I’ve been keeping an eye on the garden bird bath, and there’s been quite a bit of traffic. I’ve managed to catch several visitors having a good splash around! Here’s the wren again: And a blue-tit: And today a dunnock: I’m afraid my birds don’t get much privacy at bath time!
Watching the blackbirds nest-building this last fortnight has made me wonder which of my garden birds will be nesting next! A bit of research suggests that it’ll be dunnocks, robins, song thrush and long-tailed tits which have a main laying period of late March. Robert Burton’s ‘Garden Bird Behaviour‘ (2005) includes a summary table describing […]