Garden Bird Chat 2012

B0jangles

Bookworm85 wrote: »

I'm not doing the survey but I've had the feeders out for about a fortnight now and the amount of activity in the garden is fascinating. So far this afternoon I have counted about 6-8 great tits, 4 blue tits, 6-8 coal tits, 4 chaffinches (2 male & 2 female) our resident robin is gorging himself morning, noon and night and when it was still damp this morning there was an adult male black bird and a thrush. We also have a pair of collared doves that I have nick named the "Clean-up Crew". But best of all we have had 2 confirmed visits from a female sparrow hawk!!

Last week I found a carcass in the garden that was most likely a collared dove, but possibly a feral pigeon. There were feathers all over the place and I thought one of the neighbourhood cats got him. Then on Sunday afternoon I was doing a few bits in the garden. One of my neighbours has a sycamore tree and the starlings use it for roosting and spend a few hours there singing their heads off. All of a sudden they just took off and whatever was in the garden on the feeders scattered. Two seconds later she swooped in but perched on top of the greenhouse. She obviously missed her chance but stayed for about a minute and then flew off.

Today I was watching the feeders from the lower end of the garden and she appeared again but approached from a different direction and missed whatever she was after. Again she perched on the greenhouse for a bit and took off.

I'm beginning to think that she might have been responsible for the dove/pigeon carcass last week. She's a beautiful bird.... hope she comes back again!:D

We have a regularly visiting Sparrowhawk who comes in to hunt collared doves and I've noticed that it always pulls off the wings and sometimes the head before leaving with the rest of the body. I think cats either take or leave the whole thing in one piece.

MeteoritesEire

just saw a flock of hundreds of fieldfares here near Loch an Iuir,they were feeding on berries in the trees and then I noticed a sparrowhawk hopping about the branches-never seen that before--maybe it's common behaviour I've just never seen it.The fieldfares got away

Half-cocked

Not really garden birds, but i met a small flock ofCrossbills today!:D