Garden Birds

When we first came to our new house I rather despaired of seeing many wild birds come into our garden, at least in part because it was so bare of vegetation but also because a neighbour puts our a veritable feast for them. After some effort, we now see a fair selection of bird species, the unexpected pond - it was never planned, the dip just filled with water - being a particular attraction, especially for the wood pigeons, and....

....the house martins and swallows who have taken away vast amounts of mud with which to build their nests under the eaves of the houses in the next road down from us. At times we have upward of a dozen of them excavating the banks of the pond.

Perhaps surprisingly, we've had relatively few tits visit the feeders - the occasional coal tit or great tit, and rather more blue tits - and when they do they seem to prefer seeds to peanuts. This blue tit is interesting as she's been ringed - the ring is just visible on her left leg.

One of the species which came into the garden quickest was the blackbirds - at times we had half-a-dozen digging for worms at the same time - so it's not surprising that we're now seeing juveniles, rather bad-tempered youngsters which spend much of their time harassing their parents for food.

This song thrush hasn't come in to the garden but the beautifully clear notes of his repetitive song have. He sings for much of the day from the tops of the trees on the other side of the road from our house, and seems to be at his best either late in the evening - its still light at eleven - or as part of the dawn chorus at around 4am.

While we used to see siskins occasionally at our previous house, in our new one they're amongst the most common visitors. The reason may be that, to compete with our neighbour, we now put out large amounts of sunflower seeds. These also attract goldfinches, usually one or two at a time, which, again, were only occasional visitors at our previous house.