What have you seen
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Had a Weasel run across the road just in front of Flyte and I on our early morning walk today. Have not seen one of those in a while.
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Just about to go out for a short walk and noticed in our neighbour's Plane a large brown bird so got the bins out only to find it was a juvenile Goshawk which stayed around for awhile checking some local domestic pigeons flying around but no success, it got mobbed by 3 Magpies as usual and then as I was coming back from the village I saw it again very close flying through some local conifers and heard the crows calling out at it then it disappeared, so will it may this area its area time will tell. A lovely sunny day and blue skies.
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Quite a bit of time as a passenger over the past few days so able to do some birdwatching on the move.
Best of the bunch was a beautiful Crane in a field in Northern France, not far from Avranches, plus several Sparrowhawks. a Black Neck Grebe on a lake, a couple of unidentified Auks at sea and a Red Throated Diver. Can't see that lot when I'm driving.
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Lots of Canada and Greylag Geese around the lake at Ripley Castle and a large herd of Fallow Deer.
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Keep your eyes open for any shed Antlers, I got many of my sticks topped with shed Antler horn👍🏻
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I saw my pet Cock Blackbird's life snuffed out by the Hen Sparrow Hawk this morning. For months I have been putting an apple out by the Dining Room French Windows and watching the Blackbird eat his breakfast while I ate mine. I managed to get him within 2 feet of the glass. Spectacular bird and she remained on the floor mantling her prey and looking at me for a few seconds. She obviously felt more hungry today as she has been taking the Goldfinches lately, but prior to that she had a Spotted Woodpecker.
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No access to the parkland, so no chance of getting a shed antler.
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🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
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What an amazing 24 hours in the garden.
After months of no activity in the garden with the exception of the starlings that started off as a flock of 5 in November performing a mini murmuration each evening to this week about 200 starting at 16.00 each evening for about 30 mins.
However this attracted the local sparrow hawk's attention and 3 nights ago, the hawk followed the starlings into the huge conifer they roost in scattering them. the following night the sparrow hawk arrived early and perched in the tree waiting for room service which scared off the starlings except for one that turned up late and was caught as soon as it landed.
Last night the hawk was noticed as it flew in during an even larger murmuration and the starlings carried on the routine for a long time before flying off to roost elsewhere.
This morning, the feeder tree had turned into a war zone after a week ago the introduction of an extra feeder with a homemade fat tube mix with seed, currents, shredded wheat, suet pellets and mixed crushed nuts. This has become the number one attraction and brought a female blackcap to the garden, which was bullied from the beginning by all other birds including a male blackbird which now feeds on a hanging feeder, the first time I have seen that behaviour from a predominantly ground feeding bird.
Up until today the blackcap was bottom of the feeding chain of blackbird, robin, sparrow, blue tits etc.
However this morning, the blackcap had taken over as the aggressor, gradually climbing the pecking order, leaving only the blackbird above in the pecking order. at one point it looked like the blackcap was going to do a blue tit serious damage in a fairly lengthy encounter, pinning it to the top of our box hedge. Fortunately the blue tit escaped leaving the pecking order changed completely.
All this while the resident squirrel watched on.
Just managed to grab a shot through the dirty double glazing.
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Great photo BM we also have the Sparrowhawk around has been chasing the blue tits around the large shrub by the door for a couple of days, 2 years ago the hawk was a young one and could get through the shrub but now bigger and struggles with the mesh of small branches and will again be out and about around the feeders also have still seen the young Goshawk flying about after someones local doves/pigeons and yet there are hundreds of the common wood pigeons this year it even had a go with the local Kestrel but no success but did get chased with about 6 Magpies and 2 Carrion Crows interesting to watch.
Thick fog and frost again today so not much about except on the feeders.
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Great action picture BM and interesting info re the pecking order of the feeder visitors.
I have a five different feeders that attract many garden birds and I find that the top of the “pecking order” (pardon the pun) is the woodpecker, followed by the nuthatch, then the starling, finches and great tits, further down are the long tailed, blue, and coal tits, although the blue tits can be very territorial. We do get many other birds but these are the feeder visitors.
The sparrow hawk does pay a visit now and again but thankfully is not often successful; a couple of local cats are the bigger danger
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Similar here with the pecking order on the feeders. The nuthatch scares all of the tits off the peanuts. The magpie takes precedence over the jays on the bird table. The long tailed tits come in a group and go mostly for the suet blocks. The four! cats next door + the squirrel need constant watching.
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Envious of the bird varieties you guys are getting.
Unfortunately the Sparrowhawk is wrecking the starling murmurations, they appear to be moving the roost, as the hawk is waiting each night for them now, down to less than 50 tonight.
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Grand photo, BM!
There is a fully black rabbit, in among a few normal coloured ones, in the field behind our site. We've not seen one of those for a while. When out this afternoon on the fields down to the Ribble I saw 4 Grey Herons all together, wonder if there is a Herronry in the area.
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If you can zoom in you will see that they are Grey Seals ADP.
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Yep, there's always hundreds of them around there.
Moulesy posted a similar pic in the What are you up to thread.
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I decided to take part in the RSPB bird watch for the first time. I would not normally spend a full hour watching the birds but I’m so glad that I did, for the first time I spotted a Treecreeper in my garden. It may be a frequent visitor but I just never noticed it before.
The downside to the bird count is that quite a few regular visitors did not show up during my chosen hour but that’s the way it goes with wildlife.
When my results were submitted I noticed that House Sparrows are the most common so far with Starlings in second place, interestingly neither of these birds made an appearance at all during my hour. Various tits and finches were most common for me plus two Nuthatches.
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Hey Nevs-Starlings?, murmerations👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻. A lot of folk have issues with Starlings, yes they’re feeder bullies, yes they hang out in gangs & are messy but I’ll never ever get bored with watching the pre dusk murmerations for that I’m a fan-epic, there’s no other word for the spectacle.
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ADP-great fun👏🏻👏🏻😂, I thought the same at first glance👍🏻
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Hi R2B, yes murmerations are a delight to behold
I've been lucky enough to see the spectacle myself but not locally. We get more starlings during nesting season, its funny watching the adults feeding their oversized offspring. 2 -
Everytime I get a garden full of Starlings I’m happy because they dig the leatherjackets from the soil👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻😊
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