Visitors on a bleak Sunday morning

[Catscratch]

Thought I had better post some bird shots. All of my photos are taken through glass so not perfect, but I enjoy trying to capture them.
Hopefully this will work ok.

[Jandy]

Great shots, Catscratch - I specially like the birdbath one - wonderful expression, as if to say "Do you mind not disturbing my ablutions!'

[Catscratch]

Thanks Jandy. Fortunately our cat was fast asleep when the blackbird fledgeling was taking its bath.
Will now try to upload a couple of shots taken this weekend of some baby starlings. Not sure if I have compressed them enough yet.. so may need a few attempts.

[Catscratch]

A few more bath shots from the previous Sunday. Hope you like them. I think the blackbird had the most fun, and the tit decided the water was too deep :)

[Beebee]

Great photo's Catcratch. I had 4 or 5 Starlings in my bird bath this morning all at once, splashing water everywhere, by the time they had finished, the bird bath was nearly empty.

[Nature__Lover]

i've recently noticed hundreds (yes hundreds)
of baby starlings and mothers and fathers all around the garden .
the other day, i noticed alot of the parents were feeding the babies
whole chips, (which someone had obviously thrown out, not me!!)
which looked very funny indeed, sadly i can't get any good pics :(

[Catscratch]

And I thought I was doing well with twelve babies in the garden on Saturday! The chip feeding sounds amazing - good little scavengers.
Seems like the Starlings are having a good year - they are definitely the ones hogging my feeders at the moment.

[Nature__Lover]

they were just everywhere! flying over, on the overhead lines, in my garden, on the feeders, I had to lock my cats in the house for a few hours!

[Catscratch]

Thought I would add some more pictures that I took this morning. I just adore watching them :)

The wood pidgeon is showing why I am always topping up the nyjer seed!

The starling is one of this years brood. Yes, the pole really does lean over that far - needs re-posting.

The last image is a slightly blurred view of a bullfinch and goldfinch sharing the nyjer seed. I don't know if the bullfinch is slightly scruffy because it is molting or because it's a youngster just developing its adult coat? Can someone enlighten me please? I know that balckbirds molt, but not too sure about other birds...

[Jandy]

Great pics, Catscratch - you are lucky seeing a bullfinch - it must be 20 years at least since we've had one in the garden, even though we have fruit trees. I had to look twice at the first woodpigeon pic - first impression, either you have a levitating seedfeeder, or a Mr Universe of a woodpigeon, then I realised the photo had got a bit rotated!

[Catscratch]

Thanks Jandy,
Sorry about the confusion with the un-rotated photo :)
By the way, do you know why anyone would want to ring-tag wood pigeons? I have a reasonably regular visitor who has a red leg-ring. If I have the camera handy next time it visits, I'll try and capture a shot - just in case it's not a wood pigeon, but a racing pigeon impersonating a wood pigeon.
One of the bullfinches had a very lucky scrape a couple of days ago. I was upstairs when I heard the thud of a window-strike. It sounded like a fairly large bird, but it turned out to be a bullfinch. She was a bit dazed, but otherwise ok, so I scooped her up and put her in my recovery box (it's an old bumblebee nest box that was never used - it's perfect for small birds to rest in the dark, and it has air holes) for about half an hour and then took the box outside and took the lid off. I waited back inside the house for maybe 5 minutes with no sign of her flying off. As it was nearly dark I decided the best thing I could do was take her back inside and try again in the morning. Only she knew better, and as soon as I got close to the box - out she flew, straight to the willow tree at the bottom of the garden. I was so relieved. A successful rescue.
Can't claim this picture is of the one I rescued, but you never know...

[Nature__Lover]

The picture of the starling on the feeder is lovely. His posture makes him look proud :) and i love the little goldfinch way off in the background, having a nose at the starling!
also love the bullfinches, i've never seen one! :/

[Nature__Lover]

It's lovely to hear how you took so much care with that bullfinch. I rescue birds from various accidents quite often. Especially from the claws of my cat ! :|

[katya]

I love the bird bath (24/05/10 9.04) - got a similar one in my garden and sometimes see tits bathing in it.

[Catscratch]

Hello again to everyone, thanks for the replies :)
As promised, here is a picture of the pigeon with a ring. I think it's definitely a wood pigeon and not a racing pigeon, but I'm curious as to why it is ringed - I didn't think wood pigeons were monitored?

I've also included a shot of one of the noisy squabbly starlings, this time on his/her own. The focus is not great on the goldfinches, but it's nice to see them on the nyjer feeder and not the pigeon!

Hope you have had a lovely weekend and seen lots of birds. I'm celebrating because it's been several weeks since my little monster (the cat!) has caught any birds. Although now I've mentioned it, my fingers are firmly crossed...

[Catscratch]

Not great pictures, but I thought the determination of the pigeon to stay on the feeder deserved an airing.
It was getting quite late... and then the long tailed tits arrived. This is the only half reasonable shot out of a good half dozen - hope you like it :)
I'm always really pleased to see them.