With a break from school and more time at home due to the Chritsmas celebrations I've been concentrating my birdwatching efforts on the back garden this week. Because we feed the birds everyday, throughout the year, we usually get a good number of species and individual birds coming in. In fact, during the present cold conditions we've had much higher numbers of common birds than usual and a few nice surprises!!
Blackbird numbers have increased to 18 and they've recently been joined by both
Redwing (4) and
Fieldfare (6). The
Robins have become less territorial and have even been seen tolerating each other,
Starlings have returned to feast on the mealworms provided and
Goldfinch numbers have increased to 20+.
Blue, Great and
Coal Tits rush in to grab a sunflower heart and
Greenfinch and
Chaffinch also take advantage of the food on offer. A
Song Thrush has been seen on just one ocassion and
Woodpigeon and
Collared Dove visit everyday.
One particular bird that has been present in the garden since about September and which is very easy to recognise is a male
Blackbird with a great deal of white feathers in his plumage. I mangaed to get a few shots of him recently, one of which is shown below. It will be interesting to see if he stays into the summer or whether he leaves in the spring. I'll keep you informed.
To make all this garden birdwatching even more fun I take part in the BTO's
Garden Birdwatch Scheme, whereby I record all the birds using the garden each week and submit the records via their website. I've been doing this since 1999 and it's great to look back over the year's records and compare the results. Why not click on the above link and take part in 2011?
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