Teddy Edward: New Garden and Beyond

Once again apologies for not doing any blogs over the last few months, I won't bore you with how busy I have been with our new house. What I did want to share with you is an insight into the birds we have been seeing in our garden and in the fields we can see beyond our garden.

Our New Garden on a Frosty Morning

Shrubs, Trees and a Bird Feeder

Scrubland and Fields Beyond our Garden

I will start with the species that visited us in largest numbers over the Winter months, and that is the Greenfinch:

A small Flock of Greenfinch ready to visit

Male Greenfinch in the tree

Female Greenfinch on Feeder

They are quite a cantankerous bird and seem to pick an argument with all other birds as well as their own kind. Here is a typical Greenfinch spat:

Greenfinch Spat

I put my trail camera out and got some images of a typical spat (nearly always over food) and pulled them together to make this stop-frame video:

Probably the next most common garden bird we have is the Greenfinch's cousin the Chaffinch.

A bit less feisty than the Greenfinch these birds tend to feed more on the ground than at the feeder, but they do venture on to the feeder if things are quiet:

Male Chaffinch in a bush

Female Chaffinch on Feeder

Male Chaffinch still in the bush

I like this "hovering" Chaffinch, which often happens as they are not too confident about landing on the feeder perch:

Male Chaffinch approaching Feeder

Moving on.

We do of course have the stereotypical garden bird, the House Sparrow. They certainly use to be very common, but I understand that their numbers are in decline and they don't feature highly on some garden bird lists. But we have them:

Male House Sparrow on Feeder

You Lookin' At Me?

House Sparrow on Fence

We even had a visit from the House Sparrow's less common relative the Tree Sparrow; a couple came in to the garden in the Winter with a small group of House Sparrows. I only managed to capture this fuzzy image on my phone before they flew off:

Tree Sparrow on Feeder (sorry a bit fuzzy)

I have seen more Tree Sparrows in the last couple of years than I have ever seen before, so check your Sparrows when you see them on the feeder.

Next up is a bird that some people still refer to as a Hedge Sparrow (despite the fact that it is not a sparrow but has been properly classified as an accentor) and has been known as a Dunnock for decades. So Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow? it matters not a jot, here it is in our garden:

Dunnock below the bird table

A well camouflaged Dunnock

From a distance the Dunnock is relatively non-descript, but close-up it has browns and greys in subtle patterns making it quite attractive. It also has a delicate and attractive song.

Now for a bird that many people consider as their favourite garden bird, it cannot be labelled as non-descript, it is certainly not subtle and it's song (although very tuneful) is not considered as delicate; I give you the Robin:

Robin at the Birdbath

Robin on the ground

Robin below the Bird Table

Robin Perching on a plant

Unlike the timid Dunnock, Robins are very photogenic, they will follow you everywhere and will come quite close, especially if you have a bag of bird seed or if you are turning over some leaves or soil and exposing invertebrates worth eating. Often known as the gardener's friend............. don't be fooled by the cute looks.......... they are ferocious predators and cunning opportunists!

When you have two Robins in your garden (as we sometimes do) you will see how ferocious they can be. It's no holds-barred when they fight over perching rights on the feeder or a prized viewing position on top of a post. If you ever doubt this take the fake robin you hang from your Xmas tree and put it in a favoured position in the garden, then head back indoors to watch how it gets ripped apart.

Another bird that seems to prefer chasing off rivals rather than sharing any spilt bird food is the Blackbird. We have male, female and juvenile Blackbirds visiting our garden and they seem to be embroiled in an endless chasing game:

Male Blackbird below Feeder

Female Blackbird on Fence

Juvenile Male on Fence

I don't know when they get the chance to feed, they are always chasing each other.

Enough about squabbling Blackbirds, let's have a look at the little guys, starting with the Coal Tit. We get one or two of these cute little birds popping into nick a seed from the feeder then dart into the nearest bush to eat it. They never stop! so difficult to photograph but I did get some snaps:

Coal Tit on bush

Coal Tit on Feeder

Slightly bigger and marginally less flighty (but still as cute) is the Blue Tit. We get two or three of these birds in the garden most days, including a couple who seem to have paired up, well they at least tolerate each others presence.

This was evident when I recently strapped a home-made bird box to the large Tulip Tree in our garden. I had no sooner removed the ladder when they were at the box inspecting this potential new home:

New Bird Box on Tulip Tree

Blue Tit inspecting potential new home.

I always make the hole in the box about 20mm diameter, which is a bit tight for a Blue Tit, but they like to nibble around the edges to suit their size. Sort of stamp their mark, make the house their own. Within minutes the pair of them were taking turns at inspecting the box, nibbling around the edges of the hole and testing it for size:

Second Blue Tit waiting in the tree

Second Blue Tit makes its way to the box

Trying the hole out for size

Here's a little video of the Blue Tits taking turns in trying to make the entrance hole large enough for them to pass through:

Here's hoping they choose to nest in the box.

A bit larger than the Blue Tit is the Great Tit and we get a couple of them visiting our garden as well. They seem to favour the peanut feeder rather than the seed feeder:

Great Tit on Peanut Feeder

Sorry only have one half-decent photo of a Great Tit in our garden, they invariably seem to perch on the opposite side of the feeder.

The only other tit we get in the garden is about the same length as a Great Tit, but is surprisingly much smaller, it's the Long-tailed Tit:

Long-tailed Tit in the Tree

Once again the photo is not great but it was taken through the window and the bird would not still for very long before flitting on to another branch. We don't get them visiting very often but well worth seeing them.

Every morning for the last week or so I have woken up to the beautiful sound of a Song Thrush singing from the top of a nearby tree. Always a delight for the ears and we are occasionally blessed with a Song Thrush visiting the garden:

Song Thrush in a thorny bush

A very pretty bird indeed.

Let's now look at some of the big birds we have visiting our garden (no not the big yellow bird from Sesame Street). We will start with the common and garden Wood Pigeon:

Wood Pigeon Wintry Scene

Wood Pigeon being shy (fat chance of that!)

Not everybody's favourite bird, but they are easy to photograph. Its smaller cousin the Collared Dove is slightly more appealing to the eye:

Collared Dove on the Grass

Collared Dove on the Bird Bath

These are about the only pigeons/doves we get in the garden, the Feral Pigeons just seem to fly over, not that I am complaining.

We get several types of crow in our garden including Magpie, Jackdaw and the occasional Carrion Crow, however the most regular crow visitors are the Rooks. These inquisitive birds are often found hanging about the feeders to see if there any spilt seed around for them:

Rook in the Tree

Rook on top of Feeder Table

You lookin' at me?

Very intelligent birds and always fun to watch.

The biggest bird we used to get in our old garden was the Lesser Black-backed Gull but we don't really get gulls in our new garden. One large bird we do get is the Common Pheasant, and we can have two or three visiting at any one time. There is nearly always a male, at least one female and we've even had a juvenile male:

Male Pheasant below bird bath

Female Pheasant below bird bath.

They spend most of their time around the base of the feeders hoping the small birds drop some seed, but occasionally they have a wander around the garden looking for something to eat. Here is a video of the male having a bit of a wander:

An impressive bird and very noisy when disturbed.

Now that basically covers the birds we get in our garden, or at least the ones I have managed to photograph. We do however enjoy the benefit of having good views of the scrubland and fields beyond our back garden.