Dramatic end to my birdwatching session

Every year, I try to do the RSPB’s Great Garden Birdwatch and most years it provides a few surprises.

I was delighted when the Greater Spotted Woodpecker became a regular visitor to the garden to feed on peanuts and pleased to have him included in the survey some years back.

This year, two Jays have been regular (almost daily visitors) to the nut feeder, along with a couple of enterprising Jackdaws. They use similar tactics: they land in the tree, lunge at the feeder and hang on like grim death, bashing it with their beaks. Sometimes they extract a nut; other times, nuts fall onto the ground and they hop down to scoop those up. Often, they work as a pair, with one on the feeder and one on the ground.

I was hoping the Jays and Jackdaws would feature in my 2016 survey, but neither showed up. They are early birds and may have been and gone before I started the survey for an hour between 9am and 10am.

Something unexpected usually turns up. One year, we had a Tree Creeper (not seen him since) and another year, there was a flock of about 15 Long-Tailed Tits that arrived.

This year, things got off to a very slow start (I thought nothing was going to turn up). Then there was a Robin (which spent the whole hour foraging around the garden), a Wren and a couple of Blackbirds. The Blue Tits turned up in force after about 15 minutes, having realised the seed feeder had been replenished.

I spotted five House Sparrows sitting on the hedge near the acer. They were foraging in the hedge and sitting on the top sunbathing in between forays into the depths of the twigs. House Sparrows have been in decline in the UK, but they are still fairly common near us and always feature in my survey. Max bought me a sparrow box for Christmas, which I need to fit soon, and hopefully that will encourage a few more to take up residence.

Best part of the hour’s observation was spotting seven Greenfinches. I was pleased to see these because numbers have fallen this year. It is thought they have suffered from a disease and I haven’t seen as many around as before. This morning a flock of them arrived about 9.30am and kicked the assorted tits off the seed feeder. They dominated the feeder for 10 minutes. There were always four on the feeder and others flying from the corkscrew hazel to try to get their turn. It was quite a lively time and although I positively counted seven of them, I’m sure there were more. I never really think of them as aggressive birds, but nothing else was allowed on the feeder while they were there and they were scrapping with each other very vigorously. Normally, birds seem to get along quite politely on the feeder, a bird will fly onto a perch, grab a seed and be away, making space for the next one on line. These Greenfinches were a rough crowd, they took all four perches on the feeder and were keen to sit there for seconds or thirds. Other Greenfinches would try to usurp them and when a bird flies at a perched bird, the sitting one will normally move out of the way. These were not moving and the feeder was a buzz with flapping, scrapping finches. Those waiting to grab a place or forced off were hopping around the hazel very excitedly. You could imagine them saying: “How rude, I was on that perch and he just came and shoved me off. I could have lost a feather, he was so rough. Well, I’m not having that, I’m going back and give him some of his own medicine...”

There is normally a surprise during the session and all the Greenfinch scrapping maybe caught the eye of this fellow because my observation came to a dramatic ending at 9.50am when a Sparrowhawk appeared across my sister's garden and landed in the hazel.

Everything disappeared in a flash. The hawk sat there for a few seconds wondering where everything had gone and then flew away, just before I could get the binoculars on him for a good look. 

He certainly spoiled the party and the garden was bare for five minutes before the blackbirds and robin re-appeared and resumed their groundwork.

Birds (and numbers) seen this year were:

Greenfinch 7

Great tit 6

Blue tit 5

Chaffinch 5

Sparrow 5

Blackbird 3

Dunnock 3

Robin 1

Wren 1

Wood pigeon 1

Goldfinch 1

Sparrowhawk 1

Great Garden Birdwatch 2014

Greater Spotted Woodpecker (birdfinders.co.uk)

Another year, another Great Garden Birdwatch, organised by the RSPB. The idea of this is that it is an exercise in mass phenology and by thousands of people counting bird species in their gardens each year, it builds up a picture of what’s happening across time and across the UK.

The birdwatch surveys have illustrated the decline in songbirds and starlings and also threats to once-common birds such as house sparrows, which have reduced dramatically in number in the past decade.

I did my survey yesterday. It was a miserable wet morning, but the birds were very active and I saw 35 birds compared with 23 last year. The idea is that you count the maximum number of each species that are in your garden at any one time within the hour being monitored.

One bird, which we spotted last year, but was absent this time, was a tree creeper. Last year, it was a regular visitor on the conifers, but we haven’t seen it since spring. However, there were some new appearances – a greater spotted woodpecker, which has been a regular visitor to the garden to feed on peanuts – and a couple of goldfinches. The woodpecker  arrived after 15 minutes and spent a good five minutes pecking away before flying up into my sister’s pear tree where he clung on pecking in the ivy, obviously after dessert.

The goldfinches are the most colourful of garden birds and seem to love the winter mix that I’m buying from the pet shop in Whittlesey.

So these are the birds (and numbers) I saw this year. Last year’s figures are in brackets:

Greater Spotted Woodpecker 1 (0)

Blue Tit 4 (2)

Great Tit 3 (2)

Collared Dove 2 (1)

Blackbird 5 (3)

House Sparrow 8 (6)

Robin 1 (2)

Chaffinch 4 (4)

Greenfinch 5 (2)

Goldfinch 2 (0)

Tree Creeper 0 (1)

By the way, some of the house sparrows may be dunnocks or hedge sparrows. I struggle to tell the difference, except in the house sparrow males where their head markings are distinctive.

The Great Garden Birdwatch

I’ve spent an hour this morning doing the RSPB Great Garden Birdwatch - it’s a very pleasant way to spend some time on a sunny morning.

Garden Birdwatch day must be like Christmas day in the avian calendar (or it would be if birds had a calendar). There’s a lot of competition among spotters to get their numbers up, so all kinds of tasty treats go on the bird table.

Those not prepared to lavish mealworm and other delicacies on the local robin population risk being shunned in favour of more generous recorders.

Well, I’ve been caught out before, so this year my feeders were primed with the finest sunflower seed, the fattest peanuts I could find, some ground mix for those twitterers too full to hang from a feeder and - the champagne truffle of the bird world - a scattering of mealworms.

My hour got off to a good start when Margaret spotted an unusual bird on the trunks of the conifers by the patio. Normally, Margaret’s unusual birds turn out to be be wood pigeons, but this time she struck gold - she’d spotted a tree creeper from the kitchen window. He was working his way up the bare trunks, examining the cracks in the bark for insects and grubs. He spent a good few minutes searching the trees - tree creeper was a first for me in the Garden Birdwatch.

This year, it wasn’t very busy and the usual suspects turned up for a free feed. Everything went very quiet about halfway through the hour and I was wondering why when I spotted a large kestrel sitting in the top of the walnut tree at the bottom of the garden. He was looking for a tasty meal, but all the tasty meals had hidden themselves in the hawthorn hedge.

This year’s bird watch was notable for the appearance of the tree creeper, but it was also interesting for a number of absences. There was no wood pigeon anywhere, no starlings, no thrushes and no house sparrows (although their browner, duller cousins, the Dunnock were the most numerous).

This was my count:

Dunnock 6
Chaffinch 4
Blackbird 3
Robin 2
Blue tit 2
Greenfinch 2
Great tit 2
Collared dove 1
Tree creeper 1