Birds are so gorgeous aren't they?

Spurred on by all the birdie Waffling I'm starting this thread.

I saw two tawny owls in the ash tree outside my kitchen door last evening at dusk - FAB!

The dawn chorus is deafening here, sorry to hear yours has gone quiet, Mort.

xx Jan xx

I have the good luck to be living in my own 3 1/2 acre garden which is surrounded by farmland, and only 3 miles (as the gull flies) from the sea.

I have a vast array of birds, and over the past 16 years have seen masses of different species.

Sorry to hear you have no thrush nearby, Milly, they are such a joy. I had one today eating worms in my veg patch, and lately have heard it singing madly from the top of a holly tree.

I have a thriving flock of sparrows in my front garden, living in a dense shrub, they are a riot, constantly chattering and flying about.

There are 7 Jackdaws in the ash tree by my kitchen door, they are messy, but I love their cheery chirping.

There are lots of buzzards around here, and a sparrowhawk, and it fills me with dismay when it swoops over my feeders....however, there seems to be a healthy enough population of chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches to both feed the birds of prey and delight me.

I spend a bliddy fortune on feed !!! but the entertainment value makes it worth it.

Favourite bird? the barn owl, I've only seen one in the past 12 months. Second fave is my Greater spotted woodpecker, which appears for months on end then goes again, not around at the moment.  Then of course, the swallows are a joy, songthush a delight.
Where does one stop?

Least favourite? Magpie.

Last year I saw my first bullfinch here, that was a wonderful sight.

The one bird I've never seen is the green woodpecker. I've not seen a kingfisher here, but have done elsewhere.



x Jan x

Jan, I didn't like magpies but about five years ago I found a fledgling that had been abandoned in my garden.  I could neither kill him nor leave him to starve, so I fed him and he grew up and he was resident with me for three years.  He isn't resident now, but visits very frequently.  He's called Malcolm.    Magpies can be nuisances obviously with other birds, but I'm afraid I couldn't help growing fond of him and as a result I've ended up with a soft spot for them all.  They're actually very beautiful and extremely intelligent.

I too spend a fortune on feed.  I buy sunflower hearts by the sack, mixed wild bird seed, nuts, black sunflower seeds and I put budgie seed in all the feeders for the small birds.  I wouldn't like a caged bird, especially one on its own.   Birds need to be free.

Besides Malcolm, I also have a huge, tame wood pigeon called Wilfred.  He's the size of a breeze block and lives in the Scots pine in front of our house with his missus.  We have a small colony of collar doves, also jackdaws, rooks and the odd crow.  Unfortunately a small flock of feral pigeons have also cottoned on which I wouldn't have gone out of my way to encourage, but now they're here they're part of the crowd as well.  We have a flock of sparrows that seems to keep going in spite of the best efforts of Sydney (our local sparrow hawk) who is regularly chased off - sometimes in the nick of time and other times too late.    There's a kestrel that comes too.  I rescued a dove from that but although it managed to fly away, he'd done a good job of plucking it so I don't know whether it survived or not. 

We also get squirrels, but they're welcome to help themselves to the nuts as well.  All wild creatures welcome in Millyland. 

I'm a bird person, too. When my son was here at the weekend he said the garden was like an aviary. It's a fairly wild garden with lots of old trees (though not as many as there were, because three of the four pear trees became dangerous, eventually), which are very useful for birds. We used to have a tawny owl that lived in a tree in the main road, and was visible perching on the chimney of the house opposite us, but that tree was felled and the owl never seen again. We get the usual varieties of garden birds - my favourites are the very noisy wrens, and above all the long-tailed tits in their chattering groups. Goldfinches are gorgeous too, and the occasional blackcap (lovely song). I agree about the shortage of thrushes - odd, because the garden is full of snails for them to eat.

I get bird food from Haith's in - Grimsby? Cleethorpes? Can't remember. I order it on the internet and they deliver very quickly.

There's a sparrow's nest in the big tight-leaved shrub close to our pond, and wood pigeons nest in a Leylandii that towers behind our back fence. Tits visit our bird box but never make it their home.

So far this spring we've seen the usual magpies, doves, blackbirds and one hawk - I'll need to consult the net to look it up, it had yellow feet.

What's the best internet site for identifying British birds?

I must try and get a nice photo of sparrows bathing in the little 'stream' that runs into the pond.

We keep a wire feeder stocked with fatballs or with end slices of bread with a bit of marge on them.

and here was me hoping/expecting to have to wade through a page of stories of nervous ticks and the like...

Jays are a recent arrival in my garden, they are very striking. Another newcomer is a collared dove, I've seen it only a couple of times.

Today of all things we had a peacock arrive and perch in a tree behind our "barn" (It's a healf fallen down  50ft long tin shack!) I was reminded of one that was in Millyland sometime back....it seems to have gone away now. I rang a neighbour, who lives about a mile away and who has some, but she didn't think it was hers. Dont know what she could have done anyway! it was high in the tree.

x Jan x

The Millyland peacock is alive and well and now living in the grounds of Lytham Hall thank goodness.  It certainly travelled a great distance and was lucky not to be run over.  It's journey was marked with great interest in our local paper. 

I have never seen a jay.  My husband saw many whilst he was playing golf and told me what beautiful birds they are.