Big Garden Birdwatch

Sue did the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch today - as is always the case with this event for us there were fewer birds than we normally see, though she spotted Blackbirds, Hedge Sparrows, Great Tits and Blue Tits. The Long-Tailed Tits never show up in our garden for this event...

 http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

Long Tailed Tits

Loads of them on the fat balls late this afternoon, about 8 of them rocked up from nowhere. Always a cheerful sight...

First signs of things happening

It's all still quite a lot of not a lot in the garden at the moment, though there are signs of stirring which is nice. The photos are a brief trip round the garden to show how it's looking - yes I know the Iris and the new growth on the miniature pine aren't really wildlife related but they're currently the most cheerful colour in the garden so I thought they needed showing!  The bluebells continue to power through the chippings and the 'impermeable' membrane as you can see, and they'll be showing some colour soon I think. The pond is doing nothing, though as you can see from the photo the pondweed is still green and hasn't died down, it's due to get a good clean out this spring.

The tube on the post is our solitary bee nesting box, or rather one of three we have. You can tell that quite a few of the tubes have been used because they've been sealed up which means they're full of pollen and baby-bees for next year. In previous years I've bought them in during hard weather but this year it's been so mild I've left them out.  You can also see the stretch of hedge which is due for rennovation this year, and the buds on one of the plants in the bit I rennovated last year. 

The bird table empties over the course of the day when I fill it up - I've not seen the birds in question but the fat pigeon is around so I have my suspect

Click here for the photos..

Hard Frost

The sky was amazingly clear last night when I went to put some rubbish out, which of course meant it was very cold today. I topped the bird feeder up and put some stuff on the bird table, which means well fed pigeons in this garden. But I've been out all day so won't have seen any action.

Feeding Birds

Just to prove that we do have wildlife in the garden here are some photos of birds on our feeders (they should turn the right way up when you view them). It's still very mild so not too much feeding going on compared to previous years - that feeder is in front of a twisted hazel and I suspect it has a lot of insects overwintering under the bark because the birds do a lot of hopping and exploring among the branches. We had long tailed tits around this week, they turn up and raid the fat ball in the cage: very 'happy' birds long tailed tits...

Bird Feeder Pictures

Then, just as I was going back indoors I heard a deep buzzing - yes in mid january there was a bumble bee. It's been very mild and quite sunny here today and it may have been enough to get it out of hibernation - I hope it's got enough sense to find somwhere to go torpid again soon so it survives till the spring.

The pond is still frozen over, not much going on. Though I did notice that the bluebell bulbs have come straight up through both the new stones and the membrane underneath them - I don't really mind they'll make a nice splash of colour.

Something likes the bird food..

...but it wasn't the birds in this case.  

I looked out of the kitchen window to see that the bird feeder was empty, which amazed me till I noticed that the bottom had fallen out. Just a case of failing to do the screws up tightly enough after I cleaned it out. But there was no food on the ground underneath. So something fond of nuts and seeds had a field day with the expensive 'no mess' food and black sunflower seeds. I'm guessing that it might have been down to the local rat population as much as anything. But hey while I don't want them in the house rats are wildlife too, and they are amazing creatures.

But the feeder is fixed now, so they'll have to make do with raiding the compost heaps...

No mess? No thanks..

This autumn I splashed out on 'no mess' bird food, it was on special offer and you do get more seed for your money as you're not paying for all the husks and so forth. But the birds don't seem to be eating it half as much and I just had to chuck away half a feeder full as it had gone off. Of course with the mild weather there may actually be other food around so they're not as feeder dependent, but in previous years I've been ordering food about once every 6 weeks or so. There seem to be birds about, the 'usual suspects' for us of chaffiniches, blue tits, great tits and robins, but they're just not hitting the feeders as much. So I went down to the garden centre and bought some black sunflower seeds to mix in with it and I'll see if that makes it more attractive.

Apart from the bird feeders, the garden is pretty much dormant, even the pond snails appear to be sleeping. But the pond weed hasn't all died down the way it normally does so some is still green. There are bulbs poking their heads out of the ground, and quite a lot of things still have some leaf, but not much is going on.