Birdwatching in the garden

There is always something interesting going on in the back garden.

On Sunday morning, I’d filled the bird-feeders first thing and was sitting in the lounge with some breakfast watching the lawn as it is the start of a new week on my British Trust for Ornithology's Garden Bird Watch.

Each week, I take a note of the different species seen and the total number of birds of that species seen at any one time. The new week starts on Sunday, so I like to spend on hour on Sunday morning to see what arrives.

Last Sunday was bright and sunny and there was a flock of housesparrows feeding on the lawn near to the house. They live at Chris’ next door. He has not had his soffits replaced, so they finds lots of nesting space in his loft by squeezing through the gaps in his eaves. I counted seven and they were having a good time, taking a dip in the bird-bath, sitting in the barberry bush, which is in full flower, and dropping down onto the lawn to feed.

Two jays arrived. A jay is a regular visitor, but two together is unusual. I’m always pleased to see them because they are beautiful birds and these hopped onto the pots next to the barberry bush, so I got a really good view. One flew off and the other flew into the barberry and sat there, so I had an even better view.

All of a sudden, it dropped onto the path, grabbed a small, female housesparrow by the wing and gave her a shake. It then flew up into the corkscrew hazel and did its best to finish her off by bashing her against the branch and stabbing with its beak. It then flew off fowards the windmill with three excited jackdaws following.

I know that jays will take small mammals and fledglings, but this was a fully grown (if small) bird. I’ve never seen anything like it before and the flock of sparrows looked rather surprised. They all flew into the barberry and sat there looking at each other as if to say: “what the hell happened there?”

That was quite a violent incident, but I guess the jay had hungry chicks to feed and the loss of a sparrow is the gain for a jay.

Yesterday, I was sitting on the bench, cleaning some gas rings with a bowl of water and a Brillo pad and I could hear a gentle ‘chuck-chuck’ overhead, followed by a gentle ‘mew’. I looked up and, just overhead, very low, there was a buzzard passing slowly over with a rook shadowing him. There was no attempt to mob the bigger raptor, the rook was flying alongside and ‘chucking’ quietly as they flew eastwards over the village.

Last year, I wrote about the rooks and their aggressive interception of a buzzard that got too close to their rookery. That was a case of “scramble, scramble - enemy sighted, engage immediately.” Last year it was Battle of Britain, this year seems more like a Cold War response, fly alongside, let them know we’re here and leave them alone unless they pose an obvious threat. The odd thing was that they were certainly communicating with each other, it was almost a polite negotiation.

Thrushes burst into song

It has been a fairly mild winter so far, we've had only half a dozen nights of mild frost and a dusting of light snow overnight at the beginning of this week.

The birds have started singing heartily each morning and, for the past week, there has been a new voice in the morning choir. I thought it was a songthrush and I spotted one in the garden, which confirmed my theory.

On Sunday morning, Max (who was over for the weekend with Inna) and I stood on the back and we spotted two thrushes singing loudly to each other (or to some unseen female thrushes). They were sitting at the tops of trees in our garden and the bungalow called Gayport on the Causeway.

Max is quite good at recognising birdsong and he says songthrushes are easy to identify by their complex and beautiful song, which is characterised by repeated phrases. Normally the bird repeats each phrase three times (sometimes two) and then goes on to the next. It's really obvious when it's pointed out.

I also know how to tell a collared dove from a woodpigeon by its call. Collared doves coo in three syllables (U-ni-ted like a football fan), while woodpigeons split their coos into five - who, who, who - who, who.

I have started doing the British Trust for Ornithology's garden birdwatch. Unlike the RSPB's survey, which is once a year, the BTO does it weekly and you record all the birds you see (with their maximum number at any one time) across a week.

Jays are now regular visitors to the garden. They are here most days - sometimes one, sometimes two - and they are beautiful birds. I've also got half a dozen jackdaws who arrive most mornings to raid the peanuts. This week, I also caught a glimpse of the sparrowhawk in the garden again. I think he'd pounced on something on the lawn. I don't know if he caught it, I saw him making his getaway, but not whether he had some poor blue tit in his talons.

One of the best things this year has been watching the birds in the bird-bath. I got this for Christmas and placed it along the big border, so it could be seen from both the kitchen window and the lounge. It's amazed me how much it is used and with such gusto.

There were five sparrows splashing in it one day, another day there was a mass of spray coming from a tiny blue tit and this morning a big fat female blackbird was in their doing her ablutions. I have to top it up every morning and on the few frosty mornings have made sure I thaw the ice with some warm water.