There have been three main themes stopping me going birding recently. The first has been the advent of Christmas (did you see the pun there?). This has meant that my wife has been keen to go shopping and exploit my credit card, taking out my weekends as well as my funds. The second has been my workload, which has gone crazy recently. The third has been the weather. As I have said in this blog before, I take my young children birding with me and snow means that any outing becomes a quick exercise in snowballs, and then a prolonged exercise in moaning about fingers being cold. This, as any parent will tell you, is not a good place to be if you want to go birding.
As a consequence I have spent more time looking at the birds in my garden. I started putting out food for the birds just before I started this blog – so around about early October. To start with I had bought a feeding station with two feeders, one peanuts and one mixed seed, a hook for a fat ball and a small tray for water. The birds took a while to notice the feeders, but after about a week they spotted them and there were blue tits, house sparrows, starlings, collared doves, rock pigeons and a robin. In addition a family of grey squirrels made good use of particularly the nut feeder. The only problem with the squirrels was that they shook the seed out of the seed feeder whilst they were trying to attack the nuts. This caused a revision on the type of seed feeder that I used; the one I had came with the feeding station that I had purchased. This was essentially a plastic cylinder, capped at each end and with a hole at the bottom of the cylinder (sees the picture “feeders” attached). I purchased a new feeder with proper ports (see the picture “seed feeder” attached) to stop the spillage. I also wanted to see more and different types of bird – the blue tits, house sparrows, starlings, collared doves, rock pigeons and robin were all normal garden visitors that were visiting much more often. I wanted to encourage new birds, not necessarily rarities, but things like finches – so I purchased a nyger seed feeder, sunflower seeds and a suet feeder.
With the snow, birds obviously found food hard to find and my garden was inundated with feathered visitors. As well as the usual suspects there were dunnocks, blackbirds, song thrushes, (drum roll) chaffinches and (big build up) goldfinches!!
I have sat watching the birds from the back window on many occasions and I have even tried to take some photos. I am a beginner at this (as with so much else) but feel free to make constructive comment – but the key thing is that I enjoyed it and so did my three-year old who spent the rest of the weekend asking “can I push the camera button again?”. Excellent fun so close to home!
As a consequence I have spent more time looking at the birds in my garden. I started putting out food for the birds just before I started this blog – so around about early October. To start with I had bought a feeding station with two feeders, one peanuts and one mixed seed, a hook for a fat ball and a small tray for water. The birds took a while to notice the feeders, but after about a week they spotted them and there were blue tits, house sparrows, starlings, collared doves, rock pigeons and a robin. In addition a family of grey squirrels made good use of particularly the nut feeder. The only problem with the squirrels was that they shook the seed out of the seed feeder whilst they were trying to attack the nuts. This caused a revision on the type of seed feeder that I used; the one I had came with the feeding station that I had purchased. This was essentially a plastic cylinder, capped at each end and with a hole at the bottom of the cylinder (sees the picture “feeders” attached). I purchased a new feeder with proper ports (see the picture “seed feeder” attached) to stop the spillage. I also wanted to see more and different types of bird – the blue tits, house sparrows, starlings, collared doves, rock pigeons and robin were all normal garden visitors that were visiting much more often. I wanted to encourage new birds, not necessarily rarities, but things like finches – so I purchased a nyger seed feeder, sunflower seeds and a suet feeder.
With the snow, birds obviously found food hard to find and my garden was inundated with feathered visitors. As well as the usual suspects there were dunnocks, blackbirds, song thrushes, (drum roll) chaffinches and (big build up) goldfinches!!
I have sat watching the birds from the back window on many occasions and I have even tried to take some photos. I am a beginner at this (as with so much else) but feel free to make constructive comment – but the key thing is that I enjoyed it and so did my three-year old who spent the rest of the weekend asking “can I push the camera button again?”. Excellent fun so close to home!
you are so lucky...
