New Birds

The lavish offerings both at the back of the house, where there is the overgrown gorse bush to give them cover, and at the front, where there are plenty of young deciduous trees, are beginning to draw in the birds which, until recently, have been somewhat shy of approaching close enough to partake of the feast.

First to find a good thing are always the tits, including blue, coal and great, but today....

....they were joined by two long-tailed tits. Usually this species goes around in larger groups, so it's a bit sad to see so few, but they enjoyed a good few minutes, both on the fat and peanut feeders.

Another welcome sighting was of these two buzzards, wheeling high above the forestry at the front of the house and calling to each other. I've remarked before on how the number of buzzards seems to have fallen dramatically, and....

....one of the reasons may be the decline in the population of one of their main prey species, rabbits. A couple of years ago we used regularly to see half a dozen of them in the field a couple of hundred yards up the track which rises into the forestry: these days we see none, and we're told it's because myxomatosis has killed them.

The rabbit in the picture, which was browsing a gorse bush on the other side of the road from our house, was the first we'd seen since we moved in and seemed remarkably tame - which isn't surprising as one of our neighbours feeds them.