Unusual visitor

[peanut]

A few days ago my garden was visited by what I think was a white wagtail. I know that they do pass through the UK occasionally from the continent. S/he was with a group of pied wagtails but instead of black and white, this one was pale grey (almost white) and white. It seemed too pale to be a juvenile pied. Maybe an albino?

Apart from this, only starlings, robins, blue tits, magpies, rooks, jackdaws and assorted gulls in the garden so far.

The woodpigeons have deserted me for the local stubble fields and the blackbirds, although flying across the garden, obviously have a food source elsewhere.

There are no house sparrows!!! We had a group in spring but they’ve vanished from the area, as has the dunnock. The sparrowhawk hasn’t been around for a while either.

[peanut]

One of the blackbirds came back this morning, picking up bits of fat from under the starling feeders. It's good to see him again.

Watched a black-back gull pursuing a starling overhead. Felt sad for the starling.

I think that I've found the house sparrows, saw some small brown birds flying in and out of a tree a couple of streets away but they were too far away for me to be sure.

[peanut]

The woodpigeons are back on the tall bird table.

A pair of magpies are feeding on fat blocks on the flat concrete shed roof, they've been joined by the pied wagtails who are eating bits of fat and insect crumble. Haven't noticed the white(?) wagtail. I've now turned this into a massive bird table for ground feeders.

[peanut]

A pair of collared doves investigated the garden today but did not stop to eat. They’ve taken up position in the neighbour’s big tree. I’ll put extra mixed corn on the high table.

A new group of blue tits arrived today. They hopped around on the roof opposite my back garden before making tentative forays onto my fence. I know that it’s not the usual crowd….they’re fearless. In a few days I won’t know who is who.

The black-headed gull with the lame leg spent the day on the corner of the same roof (as usual) making frequent visits to the flat shed for chunks of fat cake. I’ve got to know him really well over the last few weeks.

Lots of starlings, they have their own feeders (I designed much of the bird garden especially for them) so they leave the other birds to eat in peace. They’ve put on lots of weight. The blackbirds are visiting in numbers now, I guess that whatever they were eating before has run out now.

[PiratesAhoy!]

Your white wagtail is most likely a pied with some albinism. There seems to have been a lot of it about this year.

Unlikely a gull would have taken down a Starling - more likely to be trying to steal the food from it.

[peanut]

Hello Piratesahoy, welcome to my garden.

You’re probably right about the wagtail, I haven’t seen it for a while though.

I hope that you’re right about the gull not hunting the starling, I love starlings.

The garden hasn’t been very different today, I was disturbing things quite a lot though, putting up a new nest box. It’s a woodcrete 3 hole box for small tits. It’s a lovely box, even has a compartment for bats! We have pipistrels in the area so this is really good. I’ve positioned it in clear view of the blue tits (they always come into the garden from the same direction). One sat on the fence and looked at it for about 30seconds (an eternity for a blue tit) but it hasn’t been investigated yet.

‘My’ black-headed gull had hot-dog sausages today…not ideal food, but he likes them. He’s been joined on ’his’ roof by another black-headed gull with a pronounced limp, although this one isn‘t hanging his leg as he flies. It’s either genetic or the dangers of land-fill living.

I had a mystery visitor for a few days, taking suet and cheese from under the shrubs along the back of the garden, also using the sanctuary ground feeder. I was hoping that it was a dunnock or wren. It’s actually a hedgehog (I think). He’s left a trail of flattened grass and dragged mud about six inches wide in a big line all around the borders. He must be able to get his head through the mesh on the sanctuary feeder to get the insect crumble. I think that he may be living in the log-pile.

[peanut]

I think that ‘my’ gull is starting to feel better. He didn’t spend the day on the roof, but I saw him flying with his pals (I can tell that it’s him by the way that he hangs his leg in flight) probably off to the beach or some landfill somewhere. Either that or he doesn’t like brie.

Started digging over the veggie patch (got screamed at by a roof-full of starlings until they got used to the idea that if they wanted to eat then they would have to do it while I was out there with them.) They eventually came down to their feeders and ignored me.

I found a handful of big juicy grubs for the bird table while I was digging (yummy…crane fly larvae). Robin landed on the bird table and went all ‘jiggly’, I don’t know if it was joy at the sight of the grubs or fear at the size of them. He has a nicely dug patch to pick over with the blackbirds in the morning.

I think that the new bluetits are coming to the feeders. These seem to favour the mixed seed feeders whereas the usual crowd prefer the sunflower heart and peanut granule feeder. They also enter the garden from a different direction.

[bird lady]

I have been getting many more birds in the frosty mornins, thrush, blackbirds, starlings, robin blue titts, greay tits, jays, collared doves,wood pidgeons,starlings,
I hav efeeders in the back garden so while at the kitchen sick I see them feeding also feeders on tree out the front so when Tv is boring I watch the birds!

[peanut]

Hello Bird Lady,

You’re getting a lot of birds now, it’s the same here. As soon as the weather turns frosty they all start to arrive. I’d love to have jays in the garden, but I haven’t seen any in the area since I was a child. I could sit and watch birds all day, it’s far better than TV.

I have to admit, though, the garden wasn’t too inviting first thing this morning. OOOHHH it was COLD!!! But once out in the fresh air it was wonderful. As Scrooge described it on Christmas morning “piping for the blood to dance to”. And I had garlic to plant.

The birds were busy first thing, the cold really brings them in. Two robins had a minor scuffle on the sloping summer house roof, nothing serious, the victor got the bird table to himself….the loser waited in a bush till he left, and then got the table. So the winner won about 2 minutes.

Had a wren in the garden for the first time ever! The only thing I can think of that I did differently was put small cubes of brie cheese under the shrubs last night instead of the usual cheddar cheese.

‘My’ gull spent another day with his friends. His leg doesn’t seem to be dangling as much now when he’s flying…I think that I may have just seen him through a bad time. I’ll miss seeing him when he gets better and I can’t tell which one he is. Ill be happy for him though.

[peanut]

Dunnock is back. He arrived on Saturday and comes a few times each day to eat under the bird tables.

I’ve had a great tit sitting in the climbers around the new nest box having a good look at it, so hopefully next year there’ll be a brood. It seems to like the hempseed feeder.

I don’t know if the roosting pocket has been roosted in yet (but I only put it up on Saturday). It has a roof and it’s really thick and warm-looking. Some blue tits have been on the fence next to it, so I’ll look out for feathers around the opening.

Two starlings followed a blackbird under one of the border shrubs and found the cheese crumbs (I was hoping that this wouldn‘t happen). It looks like my cheese expenditure will be increasing from now on.. The starlings have their own feeders (10 of them to be exact). I make my own fat products so they never run out of food, it’s so cheap to make compared to retail prices and the birds seem to prefer my recipes to the shop-bought ones.

My gull is still around. He’s started sitting on the roof of my house instead of the neighbour’s. I guess that it’s closer to the food. He had Sunday roast today.

[peanut]

As expected, instead of being on their feeders, when I opened the door yesterday morning the starlings were all in the shrubs waiting for cheese. I held off from putting any out until they had returned to their fats, eaten and gone off to wherever they go. Then I rushed out with the cheese before they came back (around 5 minutes usually). I hoped that the wren hadn’t been before I could do it, but she must have been nearby watching, as soon as I got back into the kitchen she scurried along the back fence and dived into the shrubs.

I now see the wren nearly as often as the robin, having now made the garden entirely ‘hers’. She may be sleeping in the roosting pocket. She has investigated everything and everywhere and doesn’t seem at all nervous of me. She comes to within about 2 yards of me…which is closer than robin.

Put up a 35mm hole box today so I’ll wait and see what, if anything, nests in it.

Strangely, a wagtail has started ‘talking’ to me. Whenever I sit on my back doorstep with a coffee and it’s around, it flies down to the edge of the flat shed roof a few feet away, looks directly at me and starts chattering away. This carries on for quite a few minutes. It’s lovely.

Had a quick look at the amphibian/small mammal houses (small terracotta plant pots half-buried on their sides and the bases of larger broken ones placed on top of the soil) in the damp, woody area. Also checked the bamboo pile for solitary bees and ladybirds, some seem to be in use. I never touch any of these, I just make sure that they’re OK and have not been disturbed by hedgehogs, foxes or cats.

Gull brought his 4 friends for lunch. They polished off onion rings, fish fingers and cocktail sausages.

[PiratesAhoy!]

Good story Peanut. I like the tame Wren and the chatty wagtail!

Interesting that you get 'your' gull coming down to feed. We have plenty of them circling the garden, but they've never once come down to feed, although one of them has stopped briefly on our garden trellis to rest his wings, before taking off again.

Previous to a week or so ago, we'd never had rooks either, but one stopped off for a bit of bread, which the jackdaws always seem to be happy with.

Right now, our garden is overrun with blackbirds! Probably due to the 6 or so that we hand-raised and released over the course of the year, and of course the babies of the 'natural' visitors we've had over the past couple of years - this year's parents did very well in the hiding of the youngsters from predators, and with all the food we put out, it seems that the survival rate was through the roof.

The upshot is, when you go outside onto the patio during the day, you're set upon by blackbirds, all stropping at each other, bickering and showing off, and there's a scrum for the raisins. There's also one particular female, which I'm almost sure is a hand-reared one that we called "loaf"*, who insists on waiting, pool-side, for me to fill up her bath in the mornings :D


*So called because as a youngster, she had an uncontrollable crest of feathers on the top of her head that would fuzz up at the slightest thing - and when they did so, her speckly brown head was the spitting image of a plump brown loaf of bread :)

[peanut]

Sorry not to have posted for a while, but nothing’s really happened in the garden over the last few days. The birds virtually disappeared for a while, but over Christmas a lot of people put scraps out so I think that they went off for that rather than the healthy stuff that they get here.

Many of the starlings have moved on, I’m just left with the regulars now.

The collared doves have finally started to come to the tall bird table after a few weeks of just watching it from the big tree. One of them has started sitting in an old nest, so I think that they may breed here for the first time this year.

Two of the pied wagtails seem to have paired off, they’re always together now… flying and feeding. I have a nest box ordered that is suitable for them, so I’m hoping.

I seem to be ‘knee-deep’ in blackbirds too. I think that it was a particularly fruitful year for them. Sometimes there are so many in the garden that I mistake them for starlings! In my garden they always go for the cheese first, flying off with beaks stuffed full of the stuff. After the cheese it’s the raisins that they go for.

Does anyone have any idea what bird sounds like a little frog? It’s too delicate-sounding to be a member of the crow family and is coming from a tree or a roof somewhere, so it can’t actually be a frog. This is the first time that I’ve ever heard it but it’s been around now for a few days.

‘My’ gull has been feasting on mince-pies and banana bread all over Christmas. He seemed happy with it, but would probably have enjoyed sausages and fish fingers more (I buy the cheap ones and chop then up). My garden is on a direct ’gull flight-path’ from somewhere to somewhere and the flat concrete shed roof makes a good landing and take-off pad. I think that ’my’ gull came over when it was newly injured and realised that it was on to a good thing and so stayed. Our relationship is a two-way thing…he gets a free lunch and I get an environmentally-friendly waste-disposal unit.

[peanut]

Well, it’s been a busy week in the garden. I now have a woodcrete wren roundhouse in the undergrowth and a two-hole woodcrete robin/wagtail box amongst the creepers. I’ve also managed to dig a wildlife pond at the bottom of the garden.

Birdwise, nothing has really changed, although I think that the starlings are starting to pair-up. I also saw a feral pigeon flying off with a long piece of string in it’s beak, so these may already be nesting.

The house sparrows are now back in my road, but aren’t bothering with my garden just yet. Wild food in the area where I live is pretty abundant with just about every wildlife habitat catered for, so I don’t worry about them too much. I’m also a short walk from Chester Zoo which has always had a large wild bird population (owing to a year-long supply of good food and countless warm and safe nesting and roosting places). All things considered, I’m surprised that I get any birds in my garden at all.

I think that birds of prey enjoy ‘windsurfing’. Watching the female sparrow hawk riding the breezes, with absolutely no interest in the small birds was wonderful to see. She really seemed to be having a great time.