The Big Garden Birdwatch

That is what we have been doing today.

Every winter in the UK (since 1979) the RSPB asks the British public to take part in a survey of the birds in their garden. About half a million people take part and it has become the worlds largest wildlife survey.

So for one hour over this weekend we were asked to record the birds that visit our garden. They don’t want you to count how many times Blue Tits visit your feeder because that would be the same birds over and over, instead they want you just to watch and record the largest number of each species that you can see at any one time.

So during my allotted hour there was one point that I had four Blackbirds on the grass together, four is the answer, not how many Blackbirds I saw in the entire hour, get it?

This is my view of the garden from my kitchen window that will do. Most of the birds will be around the feeder, I have put plenty of food out on the grass to try and bring them into my field of vision and if I get three or four of one species on the feeders at the same time then I am scanning around to try and see more.

My results were not very spectacular. Some birds that I could almost guarantee to show up, didn’t. So for Collared Doves the answer was none, there are a pair that live here and I see them every day but during my hour they didn’t show. I hope they don’t get the idea that Collared Doves are extinct in Gloucestershire.

It is quite a fun thing to do. It requires a lot of attention. We had ten species visit during our hour and it could have been quite a few more. They all visit at the same time so I am trying to keep track of three House Sparrows over there and two Blue Tits on one feeder and two Robins squabbling amongst the bushes and so on.

I couldn’t take pictures while I was counting, I was too busy and then I couldn’t take pictures afterwards because it was just so murky but I did my best to try and show you what it was like.

The results that I returned were..

6 House Sparrows
6 Blue Tits
4 Goldfinches
3 Great Tits
2 Robins
4 Blackbirds
3 Chaffinches
2 Dunnocks
4 Bumbarrels
1 Wren

My favourite was the Wren, I hardly ever see them in that part of the garden and didn’t expect it.

It doesn’t look like a lot of birds but there were quite a lot of birds, they just didn’t all appear together and I was just following the rules. Quite a few local species would appear to be extinct if they just looked at my results but I expect that other people will report seeing them and an hour isn’t very long.

I could easily have missed the Bumbarrels too (Long-tailed Tits). They are not regular visitors but they have been here for a few days and just at the right time for the survey.

So that is the Big Garden Birdwatch. The RSPB will collate all of the results and tell us which species are in decline and which are doing well and they will use that information to focus their conservation efforts on the birds that need the most help.

The “Microlight” Blue Tit

Haircut

Ha Ha HA! You look like a sheep!

Okay, yes Let’s compare haircuts…

Yes well let’s talk about something else then.

There was not much Woodpecker action in the garden today and I am afraid that I have lost them. The female was here a few times but not all the time like she was before. I am pretty sure she was coming for food for the nestlings and now they are feeding themselves. They will probably disappear into the woods and be Woodpeckers now. I am still hoping for some decent shots of the juveniles before they go.

There were plenty of other birds in the garden including quite a few new Great Tits (yellow cheeks again)

Come on then, let’s compare cheeks….

..and there is a clear winner

There was another new visitor to the garden today and this visit probably had something to do with Fizz being absent at the hairdressers.

This is a Squirrel fledgling, it’s a young one that has just left the nest.

Normally problems arise when a Squirrel finds a peanut feeder but I think Fizz can handle this one. She will chase it but she will never get anywhere near it. She is a farm dog, she is not allowed in the house, sleeps in the back porch and spends most of her time in the garden. (Even though she is only just a toy dog)

Speaking of toys. earlier today I accidentally miss-threw her ball into a hedge and being so useless she was unable to retrieve it. I had to walk all the way to the nearest village to buy her a new one and when I got there they didn’t have any balls so now she has got one of these…

As toys go this is a fail.

She loves it but if she gets hold of it the walk is over. All she wants to do is beat it up, “This is what I’ll do to the Squirrel when I catch him.”

She will never catch a Squirrel (her legs are too little)

Give me my toy back!

Yellow Cheeks

Before I start this post let me just explain the significance of the yellow cheeks to everybody who doesn’t know or have the Eurasian Blue Tit locally (most of the world really)

In the UK the Blue Tit is a common garden bird. Very neat and tidy it is a pretty little thing much loved for it’s acrobatics on the bird feeder.

It looks like this.

No it doesn’t really (not all the time) I’m just joking with you.

This is an adult blue tit.

Newly fledged birds have yellow cheeks.

Blue Tits have a large brood, it can be as many as fifteen but eight to ten is more common. They take a lot of feeding, each little bird needs about a hundred caterpillars a day, so the parents are kept very busy. They have to find all that food on top of looking after themselves. A wet Spring can be devastating for Blue Tits, they only have one brood and if it rains at the wrong time they can’t find enough insect food and the chicks die.

We have had a very wet Spring this year and so I have been watching the feeder for a couple of weeks now looking out for those little yellow cheeks.

Fed up with fetching home an extra thousand caterpillars a day the parent birds are very keen to bring their young to the feeder and teach them how to get their own dinner.

You have to get it through to them that this isn’t just a place where you come to be fed now that you are an adult. This is a place where you come to feed yourself!

There are no more free lunches.

So this is what you do. You pick the food up… Wait……Then you put it in your mouth and you swallow it!

Okay?

One more time. How hard can it be? Pick it up and eat it!

You’re on your own.

What are we supposed to do? Did you follow any of that?

Hello Baby. I am so glad to see that you made it. It is going to be a long hot summer now and you will soon get the hang of it.

A Bird In The Hand

I have been watching the back garden birds closely for the last week anxious to see the little yellow faces of Blue Tit fledglings. Just because it has been such a wet spring. It’s hard for the parents to find enough food to raise a brood. So I really wanted to see a Blue Tit fledgling, just not like this….

I got home from walking Fizz and doing nature observation stuff and my landlord called me, he had something for me. A neighbour had found this fledgling on his lawn and brought it round here so that the Bird Man could look after it. He can’t.

I know that it is with the very best intentions that somebody will see a little bird like this and think that it is in trouble but it is not. Fully feathered and capable of flying several feet this little bird is supposed to be on the ground it is a natural part of leaving the nest. The parents will be close by and will continue to feed it and look after it. The only thing that I could do was take it back to where it was found and let it go and hope that it will be all right.

I am pretty sure that it will be fine it had a healthy pair of lungs and made a lot of noise and the parent birds will obviously still be around. Birds have a really poor sense of smell and so it doesn’t matter that people handled it, they won’t reject it like a mammal might.

Lovely to see the little bird and to know that they are finally leaving the nest. I shall double my watch on the back garden feeder.

 

I am going now. Come and have breakfast with me some time. bye. Take care  and good luck.

…..Learn to fly.

I am sure it’s parents will find it, I put it back exactly where it had been found.

Did the Nasty Naturalist take your picture?

I am sitting by Treacle’s tripod-side and all that I can do is look out of the window.

Anyway, it’s what’s inside that counts and to know you is to love you.

Horrible May!

Yes. Horrible May and the very serious consequences of horrible Mays. This is also going to be a post about what you can do about it (Positivity).

What’s going on? This is the one month of the year that I really look forward to. Also this is the month that nature has decided is the best time to be born into the wild.

Wrong!

So Blue Tits. (Yes and blue toes, it’s freezing, raining and there is a gale blowing)

If you feed the birds regularly then you may have noticed a change in their behaviour in the last couple of weeks. My landlord mentioned it to me, he was talking about the Goldfinches, he is very fond of them, he said, “They don’t seem to come around much now.” In fact they are still here and food is disappearing from the feeders faster than ever but the bird’s visits are much shorter.

They are feeding their newly hatched chicks. They can’t feed them peanuts or sunflower hearts. They need high protein insect food and much of the adult bird’s day is going to be spent feeding it’s young. Putting food out in the garden means that the parents can feed themselves quickly and gives them more time to spend on more important things.

Sadly bad weather in May can have a devastating impact on our song birds. Caterpillars get washed off the trees. There just isn’t enough food around at the very time when it is most needed.

Blue Tits have a large brood, it can be as many as fifteen but eight to ten is more common. Each chick requires about a hundred caterpillars a day. Ten chicks equals a thousand caterpillars a day. They don’t need rain.

Seriously I have seen this weather pattern before and there has been a massive decline in song bird numbers come the summer.

The only thing that we can do to help them is to put out food for the adult birds. Please don’t think that winter is over and they don’t need it any more, they need you now more than ever.

Numbers go up and numbers go down, nature is cruel and whatever happens they will recover but ..

IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE BIRDS IN THE GARDEN THIS SUMMER!

Poxy weather.

Feed the birds. They will love you for it.

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..