Garden Birds

jonnreeks

Hi,

I live in a terraced street with a nice long rear garden. I have plenty of greenery and shrubs and attract plenty of birds.

Does anyone have any unusual birds outside the traditional, robin, blackbird, thrush, starling ,dove, etc

blackbox

We have grey crows. They are quite noisy but otherwise ok and interesting. They seem to happily coexist with all the other birds except magpies. The magpies left when the grey crows arrived.

looksee

We have buzzards with apparently a nest very close to the garden, they hunt over the garden (rabbits) and adjacent field a lot. Not likely to see them on the bird feeder however. Resident wrens and loads of very stupid bluetits. Also wagtails, chaffinches, goldfinches, other tits and lbjs that I am not very good at identifying. And huge pigeons and lots of corvids. Dratted things eat anything I can grow.

jonnreeks

We just had a doves next between both house at the front of our terrace. They chose a very unusual spot, but it worked and they had two babies which flew off this week!

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058300339/garden-birds

There's too many to list. I've had over 50 species in my garden over the years.

jonnreeks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701228#Comment_120701228

Nice 1 Jim,

What would have been the most unusual or rare bird you might have seen in the garden so?

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701589#Comment_120701589

I've had a Dipper and currently have Great Spotted Woodpeckers. In an average week weld have 16 to 18 species.

HorseSea

Goldcrest were frequent visitors over the last few years and occasionally long tailed tits, I have only seen one Goldcrest this year. Generally the number of birds visiting has dropped dramatically, mainly as there has been a huge increase in cats in the neighbourhood, one neighbour now has three. I hate cats.

The Continental Op

Because Jim didn't give us his full list ;-) and because I've never made one....

Dipper (was daily visitor but not seen for more than a month)

Pied Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Mallard

Buzzard

Raven

Hooded Crow

Jackdaw (surprisingly uncommon but very common less than half a kilometre away)

Chough (weird - one nests in a neighbours barn)

Magpie

Sparrow Hawk

Pheasant

Racing pigeon (he left this morning, they often get exhausted and drop in to see our birds)

Wood Pidgeon

Collard Dove

Redwing (winter)

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

House Martin

Sand Martin (they nest in the cliffs on the beach)

Spotted Fly Catcher (rare visitor)

Wren

Gold Crest (only in winter on peanuts)

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Long Tailed tit (back this week after long absence)

Gold Finch

House Sparrow

Hedge Sparrow

Bullfinch (very occasionally)

King Fisher (about once every couple of years)

Blackbird

Starling (just back, trying to drink the nectar on Phormium flowers)

Song Thrush

Heron

Cormorant (fishes in river)

Redshank (occasionally flies up river)

Surprisingly few really considering we have rough scrub woodland to one side and about 300m of river bank. I could exaggerate the list a bit by listing all the birds I can see from the bottom of the garden where it meets the sea but that really isn't part of the garden :-0

Jim_Hodge

I hope this Copy works.

Alun

I can't compete with Jim's list, but I only have a small suburban garden on the outskirts of Bray whereas it looks like he lives a bit more rurally, but at the moment I'm seeing the following on or around our bird feeders...

Goldfinch (lots!)

Greenfinch

Bullfinch

Chaffinch

Siskin

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Robin

Blackbird

Starling

Feral pigeon

Woodpigeon

Collared Dove

Magpie

Jackdaw

At other times of the year we also get ...

Black cap

Redwing

Redpoll

And also get the occasional Sparrowhawk attacking something in the garden, often get Buzzards circling overhead, plus a stray Grey Heron on our neighbour's roof once :)

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120702020#Comment_120702020

Would love to see the Willow Warbler and Read Bunting, but not something that is likely to drop in, although on the super rare list there was a sighting of a Hoopoe not far from here. Another blow in like most of us in this area :-)

mallards

I downloaded an app for my phone called merlin bird ID. You set it to record and it listens to the birdsong and identifies which birds are singing. Been great over the warm evenings findings out what's there. I had about 15 different birds in a ten minute recording. Everything including a redstart and a lapwing.

iniscealtra

We have willow warblers on the edge of the garden. There are willows in the next field. Saw a bull finch yesterday. Also great tits, wren, blackbird, thrush, goldfinch, wagtail, swallows, dunnock, tree creeper, robin, wood pudge on, collared dove and hear the cuckoo constantly. I see him on my walks - nesting nearby. Magpies obviously and thee odd seagull. Rural area, lots of trees. In the west so no woodpeckers here yet. Lots of birds - I’ve never seen a greenfinch here.

iniscealtra

@Jim_Hodge That recording is impressive. You must do the bird surveys for bird watch Ireland.

Forgot the chiffchaff

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120703657#Comment_120703657

I don't do Birdwatch Ireland surveys but there is a Weekly BTO Garden Birdwatch Survey I do. It's an interesting exercise.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120703264#Comment_120703264

Thanks for pointing that app out. 👍👍👍

I just tried this app. Literally stood at the back door and it recognised the sparrows. Also it distinguished tree sparrows from house sparrows. I knew we had tree sparrows as the males have smaller bibs, but I didn't expect it to spot the difference from a cheap phone.

Edit ... It's brilliant ... Picking up a load of birds. Didn't know we had Goldcrests or at least hard to spot.

Stephen_Maturin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120702020#Comment_120702020

Great list!

Must say I’m shocked at how infrequently you see hooded crows - they’d easily be a weekly visitor in my garden!!

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120712365#Comment_120712365

They are around, and fly over, but rarely come into the garden. Their number are huge though.

HorseSea

@mallards I tried out that app Merlin Birds ID yesterday, very impressed, thanks for the heads up.

blackbox

I saw a woodpecker in the garden this morning (Wicklow). The first time I've actually seen one in Ireland. I've often heard them pecking.

The Continental Op

Just looked them up and didn't realise we only have the Greater Spotted Woodpecker as a recent blow in to Ireland? I was used to watching the Green Woodpeckers everyday where I used to live in the UK.

z80CPU

blue tits

robins

magicbastarder

despite having had the intention to put a list together over the years, i've never done so - but off the top of my head (we've a decent sized suburban garden on the northside of dublin)

wrens, goldcrests, pigeons, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, sparrowhawk, various gulls, magpies, starlings, sparrows, robins, blackcaps (though i've not seen any in a few years), dunnock (rare), goldfinches (rare), bullfinches (rare), chaffinch, collared dove, jackdaw. at least one of the thrushes, but i've never gotten close enough to tell which one.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120726386#Comment_120726386

Yeah it's weird, been extinct here for hundreds of years until recently.

Ireland was pretty much completely deforested through the 16th and 17th centuries so that probably led to their demise. It was said that once upon a time you could travel from Dublin to Cork without ever touching the ground and it was far quicker to sail around.

Thankfully snakes can't fly.

macraignil

Not that unusual but one of the regular visitors to the garden that I find interesting is the pheasant which I caught on a video clip posted here. Lots of the birds already mentioned. Particularly like to see the swallows demonstrating their aerobatic skills at this time of year but could do without the poop they drop from the nest over the back door.

Happy gardening!

Jim_Hodge

........

Ger Roe

Living in Kilpedder, North East Wicklow, I have noticed some great spotted woodpeckers in recent years. Yesterday morning I pulled back the curtains to see one clinging on to a cordyline tree in the back garden and hammering away. That is the closest I have seen one to the house and it was great to see it in action.

Common Buzzards have become more so here in the past few years and I have seen them swoop down on smaller birds in the garden. In good weather I have seen up to six doing Red Arrow display stunts overhead. I also saw a Jay in the garden once.

I started up a ' birds wot I saw' Excel spreadsheet just this week and the woodpecker is the most exotic entry, for now.

NIMAN

We have large trees on our boundary, and we appear to have pigeons living in them permanenty.

Rumours are that a local guy kept racing pigeons, but released them all. Not sure if that's true.

They can be quite noisy early in the morning.

NIMAN

Got a question about sparrows.

In these nice evenings, there would often be 20 odd of them all out flying about mad. Are they playing with each other? Or feeding? As I read they catch insects on the wing.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120732555#Comment_120732555

Sparrows or swallows?