Watching birds (and other wildlife) in the garden

[FleetwoodRaincoat]

Not sure if this is the right place to post but I couldn't see a wildlife thread anywhere.

I've been really enjoying watching birds in our garden over the past year. I've put up several feeders, a bird box, built a little wildlife pond etc.

For the past few days I've been watching a pair of blue tits going in and out of the nest box. At the moment they seem to be going in then throwing stuff out, rather than building a nest.

Anyone else interested in what's going on in their garden?

We have a heavy stone bird bath, too - just under the edge of the tree where the feeders are (small garden) so out in the open but shielded from hungry things with claws and big beaks up above, so the tits will take their babies to it.

When it's hot, the female woodpigeon just sits right in it so all the water pours out of it 🤣 (the feckers also have a habit of turning around and shitting in it when they're done so all the other birds leave it alone.)

@PickAChew

We have a heavy stone bird bath, too - just under the edge of the tree where the feeders are (small garden) so out in the open but shielded from hungry things with claws and big beaks up above, so the tits will take their babies to it.

When it's hot, the female woodpigeon just sits right in it so all the water pours out of it 🤣 (the feckers also have a habit of turning around and shitting in it when they're done so all the other birds leave it alone.)

That's our set up too. How do you know which one is the female wood pigeon?

The local males are all much bulkier than she is with more hooked beaks. I worked this out when they were making out, as they frequently do, of course 😂

And she's the one who runs herself ragged building the nest. The males just strut, eat, shit and fight.

Red Kites are amazing. My son left some food for them on the garage roof and they swoop down for it. They also like it when it’s windy. All the other birds find somewhere to roost but the Kites are up. They also seem to fly really high and you can hear them calling. I’ve joined our local Wild Life Watch group. Never had much of an interest before but now it’s a real hobby.

Yes!

I love watching wildlife too.

I have windowboxes full of bedding violas, they apparently aren’t great for wildlife but mine are full of ladybirds and spiders and bumblebees love them.

So much so I had a bumblebee digging around in the soil the other day, I presume considering building a nest there.

Wood pigeons are regular visitors, as are thrushes and robins and blue tits though as an edible gardener I’m often not too pleased to see them!
The Robins and tits are alright but the thrushes are terrible cherry thieves and the wood pigeons, they eat just about everything!

The pond is lovely early summer too as it’s heaving with newts which you can often see swimming around

Pictures didn't post first time

I don't have a bird feeder (too many neighbour cats come into the garden), but plenty of wildlife-friendly planting means I'm never short of something to watch. In the past week I've seen:
Long-tailed tits
Wren
Woodpigeons
Blackbirds
Great tits
Blue tits
Goldfinches
Starlings
Sparrows
Magpies
Robins
Crows (of some kind, might be rooks or jackdaws)

I was always told to keep the bird bath in the shelter of a bush so the birds felt secure to use it

I’ve spent years trying to turn my garden, which was just lawn when we moved in, into something more wildlife friendly. For the first few years we only had sparrows and jackdaws, but this past year the number and variety of birds that come for a visit has increased rapidly.

At the moment, we get a lot of finches, especially goldfinches and Siskin. They cost me a fortune in bird food, but it’s so worth it! Plus a lot of the birds will give something back in return for all that food; the blue tits do an excellent job keeping greenfly under control and goodness knows how many snails I’d have in the garden if the daily blackbird patrol didn’t take place!

Re. birdbaths, I’ve placed mine in front of a shrub, in a place where the birds have a clear line of site in all other directions. Birds are really vulnerable when they’re having a bath, and the shrub means that they can take shelter in seconds. I also put a large, shallow container on the ground for birds that prefer to stay on the ground. That one is close to a hedge (for shelter) and close to my patio doors which makes it less interesting for cats. The blackbirds and dunnocks love that improvised birdbath. I could watch them all day long!

We have some robins that visit every day. Unfortunately our old neighbours had a lovely cat who was a prolific hunter, so despite us, the new people next door and the people the other side of them putting up extensive bird feeders, I'm yet to see any birds dare to feed. (Cat has been gone two years). The squirrel does though. We have big pigeons and crows who in 2019 when we were on holiday systematically stripped all the moss off our shed roof to get the insects I suppose, leaving it all piled up on the path!

We've got a bird feeder for the first time and love watching all the different birds. DH has been keeping tally of them and was very excited to tell me the first time he saw a chaffinch out there. We have meal worms, peanuts and seeds and it's fascinating how the different birds like the different food. We've also got curlews and lapwings nesting round here and I love spotting them when out walking.

Although we have a cat he doesn't seem interested in the birds (voles are another matter) and they seem to know it. Doesn't deter them from the garden. Our most exotic sightings are a pheasant who strayed in from nearby woods, buzzards mewing high above (no red kites yet unfortunately) and a heron who helpfully keeps the fish population in the pond down to reasonable levels.

I want to do more of this. I love watching the bird but basically no idea what I’m looking at 😄
We have 2 empty bird boxes, and DH found a hedgehog house in the back garden (we recently moved in). He fixed it and we moved it to the front garden because I can’t work out how a hedgehog would get into our completely fenced back garden. So it’s in the front but quite exposed, we have lots of bushes so I guess I should move it into one of those? We’re on a busy ish road so not much passing wildlife I’d imagine. We have a camera in it just in case! Any advice?

I bought my husband a cheap (£30 ish) wildlife camera from amazon a couple of years ago. It strapped to a tree/post. Overnight we had so many mice, cats, a fox and birds. It lasted about 6 months out in all weathers.

If you wonder what's out there you never see it's good entertainment

I love this thread!

We've really enjoyed watching the birds during lockdown. In our garden we have:

Goldfinch
Robins
Great tits
Coal tits
Blue tits
Long tailed tits
Bullfinch
Chaffinch
Dunnocks
A single wren
Jackdaw
Wood pidgeon
Magpies
Collared doves
Siskin (occasionally)
Blackbirds

Sunflower hearts are definitely the most popular food. We have a camera in our nest box. No nesting activity yet, but a great tit comes and sleeps there every night!

The goldfinches in our front tree were my Covid entertainment when I was bedbound for a week last year. The nest box has had interest from some bluetits so we're hopeful we may have some chicks. The back garden is full of sparrows, bluetit, great tit, black birds, pigeons, magpies and starlings. Think some pigeons may be planning on nesting in our big tree.
Our 4 year old is getting good at bird identification! Love that she has a connection to nature

@Thirstquenching

My wee blue tit chicks

They’re great tits, @Thirstquenching.

Only a balcony here but it's right next to three large Cypress which the birds adore and are in and out of all day so I get blue, great and coal tits at my hanging feeder along with robins, starlings, wood pigeons, collared doves and jackdaws eating out of a tray and a very occasional jay drops by. My fav in the tree but which don't come to the feeder are goldcrest. They are tiny and flit in and out of the tree at great speed

We have masses of parakeets in the summer (SW London) but I've never seen one at the feeder.

I love feeding the wildlife.
I have two bird feeders. The first one in the w
Lawn so more exposed and the larger birds and squirrels feed off of it and another in a more shelter location for the smaller birds. I buy fat balls, suet blocks and seed for Wilko or sometime I get lucky a find a larger split sack somewhere like Asda that has been reduced as the packing is split. I decant it into a large old bread tin so don’t care about the bag being split. I also make my own fat balls from used cooking fats and seed or soak old bread in the fat and hang on the feeders.

Waste food goes out for the foxes and badgers. I also buy reduced or wonky apples and pears which I cut one up each evening and leave about for the badgers.

My neighbors hate me for encouraging them but I don’t care as it is us who have taken over their homes to build ours and with everything bit of available land being built on and concreted over their natural feeding ground is fast disappearing.

One of the blue tits who's been checking out the nest box this week.

We're dingy get many birds in our garden despite my best efforts. But when I was out there yesterday a Robin came down, completely unconcerned and actually hopped over my boots while I was stood watching him. Made my day 🙂

@Pyewackect What do you feed your red kites on? I offered a dead mole but they weren't interested.

My best memory was standing in our orchard in the middle of a flock of long-tailed tits, the closest only a couple of feet away, the first time I'd seen them in the garden.

Can I recommend BTO's Garden Birdwatch? - this is different from the RSPB one that gets all the publicity. You try and watch your birds for the same amount of time each week, and enter counts of each species on line. You get newsletters and a magazine so you can see what's happening nationally and whether your garden is reflecting that - for example we saw the effects of the trichomoniasis on greenfinch numbers, and we saw when numbers started to recover. And when there was a dearth of pine seeds in E Europe one winter, we had a flock of waxwings in our hawthorn. In addition, your data is kept, and you can look at it in different ways, compare this year with last year and so on. You can also, if you wish, record mammals, amphibians, butterflies, dragonflies, bees. And you have the satisfaction that you're contributing to one of the best and longest running Citizen Science projects.

www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw

I've counted 26 different types of bird in garden in the last few years.Some like Fieldfare,redwing and mistle thrush and bullfinch just spotted once or twice passing through in winter.
But we have a huge colony of sparrows who inhabit the beech and hawthorn hedges.They chatter and squabble all day long.
And recently adorable long tailed tits have been daily feeder visitors. My absolute favourites though are the blackbirds. Their song first thing in the morning and last thing at night.The way they fly in like little aircraft and their hop skip walk as they forage for worms.
DH jokes I spend more on food for the birds than for us.