Stuck In
The snow that covered much of the UK caused us some fun and games too, we only just made the Christmas party in London on Friday, through a combination of walking, taxis and trains, which themselves were severely disrupted. Other plans however were put 'on ice' as we hadn't planned ahead and moved the car from the driveway, which is at quite a slope. I tried to move it a couple of times, only to fall over and badly bruise a shin, so we were pretty much stuck for the balance of the weekend.
So our attention turned to feeding the local birds. You can see here how miserable it was, early on Friday morning, this Redwing was perched in our hedge, with no cover to avoid the snow:
It stayed cold all weekend, the highest temperature we recorded was around 2 Celsius, so all the birds are puffed-up against the cold, like this Robin:
This is the first Wren we've seen for about four months:
The Starlings are back in numbers now, we've had around forty at any one time this weekend, they love sultanas:
The local territorial singing Song Thrush was killed by a cat in April, which was very upsetting, and we've not had one in our garden since then. This weekend we've had two:
The second one keeps lifting a foot off the ground, trying to keep one foot at least warm.
Another Winter to Spring regular is the Reed Bunting, we had our first in the garden less than two weeks ago, we're up to about eight today:
And of course the Blackbirds. Loads in Spring when they were breeding, then literally the odd one through Summer and Autumn as they move out to feed, then when the winter gets hard, double figures within a day:
Other birds include House Sparrows (around eighty to one hundred), Wood Pigeons, Black-headed Gulls, Sparrowhawks, Stock Doves, Collared Doves, Feral Pigeons, Chaffinches, Greenfinch, Goldfinch and for the third year in a row, a female Pheasant. The forecast is for this cold spell to stay with us for at least another week. We expect more and more birds to come into the garden during this period...
So our attention turned to feeding the local birds. You can see here how miserable it was, early on Friday morning, this Redwing was perched in our hedge, with no cover to avoid the snow:
It stayed cold all weekend, the highest temperature we recorded was around 2 Celsius, so all the birds are puffed-up against the cold, like this Robin:
This is the first Wren we've seen for about four months:
The Starlings are back in numbers now, we've had around forty at any one time this weekend, they love sultanas:
The local territorial singing Song Thrush was killed by a cat in April, which was very upsetting, and we've not had one in our garden since then. This weekend we've had two:
The second one keeps lifting a foot off the ground, trying to keep one foot at least warm.
Another Winter to Spring regular is the Reed Bunting, we had our first in the garden less than two weeks ago, we're up to about eight today:
And of course the Blackbirds. Loads in Spring when they were breeding, then literally the odd one through Summer and Autumn as they move out to feed, then when the winter gets hard, double figures within a day:
Other birds include House Sparrows (around eighty to one hundred), Wood Pigeons, Black-headed Gulls, Sparrowhawks, Stock Doves, Collared Doves, Feral Pigeons, Chaffinches, Greenfinch, Goldfinch and for the third year in a row, a female Pheasant. The forecast is for this cold spell to stay with us for at least another week. We expect more and more birds to come into the garden during this period...
Labels: bird identification, bird photography, bird watching, birding, british birds, garden birds, gardening, walking
posted by Michael at 12:17 pm
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