West of ireland

[Louise]

Hello
I'm new to this so forgive any faux pas !
My rural garden of just over half an acre is in Mayo, Ireland.
The birds spotted so far this year.
Blackbird, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, chaffinch, goldfinch, siskin, greenfich, robin, wren, magpie,song thrush, tree creeper, pied wagtail and tree sparrow.

Seen this morning for first time 2 common Redpolls
(http://www.cjwildlifeforum.com/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=10358)

[Jandy]

Welcome to the forum, Louise!

That's an excellent list you have there. I wonder if, being in the west of Ireland, you have not suffered such bad weather this winter as us over here. Mind you, I visited the west of Cornwall for a week, where even frost is fairly rare, and the snow was 1.5 inches deep! But I did get the chance to see redwings and a fieldfare right in the garden.

You are lucky - The only birds you have that we get are blackbirds (3 males and one female recently), blue, great and coal tits, goldfinches (plenty), greenfinches (ditto), robin (one or two), and magpies. In addition we recently had a pair of long-tailed tits, and we have loads of starlings, some collared doves, woodpigeons, feral pigeons of course, and the occasional chaffinch.

You are lucky to see song thrushes and redpolls. We never get these in the garden.

[Louise]

Thank you for the welcome
We had heavy snow here from just before Christmas until last week which froze during snowfalls to produce 'sandwiches' of snow and thick ice.
The birds were certainly out in force at the feeders, we have 4 feeding stations in the garden, the main one being on the barn opposite the kitchen windows. We were amazed to see 4 and 5 robins together with the same no. of blackbirds and goldfinches all feeding together.
The redpolls are new visitors this year but the song thrushes are regulars.
We are in the countryside and also see sparrowhawks and owls on a regular basis