Small Bird News

The goings-on amongst the small birds in the garden has, of course, been dominated by the intense and ceaseless warfare between what we think is at leat four, and may be several more robins vying for what must be prime robin territory for the coming winter. Featuring in the photo is, I think, robin#4 with a few more of its baby feathers shed. This one may appear to be the most junior but it's extremely aggressive - at the time the picture was taken it was fighting with fully-grown robin#1.

If we have too many robins we certainly have a garden-full of blue tits. I lost count through the summer months of how many broods the parents reared but the result is a massive hit to our peanut budget.

In fact, the tits generally have done well, with both great and....

....coal tits aplenty.

The main loss to the garden recently has been its blackbirds: we haven't seen a single one in several weeks yet earlier in the year there were two pairs arguing over the bird seed. We have no idea what's happened to them: I do hope they're taking a well-deserved holiday somewhere nice.

Other species which haven't put in an appearance recently include the siskins and the goldfinches: the niger in their special feeder continues to go down steadily but it's house sparrows which are eating it, probably because they are pushed off the main feeders by hoards of other house sparrows.

We have the occasional greenfinch visiting us and usually they tolerate no nonsense when it comes to the feeders but the sheer volume of other birds does seem to intimidate them.

The sparrowhawk continues to frighten the assembled mob but they also have the black-and-white cat from the house on the other side of the field calling, though we do our best to 'discourage' him.

Having this heap of birds in the garden is a great pleasure but we know that, as winter comes on, many of them won't make it and the few that are left will become increasingly precious.