daily delight, lymm UK, garden and nearby reports (1 Viewer)

Yes they hibernate for the winter. Most of the snow has gone from our garden now so the birds can forage. My bro in law had 7 Fieldfares yesterday which, considering he hardly ever sees a thrush other than a Blackbird, got him pretty excited. I saw a Fieldfare a few streets away and we had two Redwings in the garden, but now the snow is gone they usually disperse across the nearby countryside.

Lee

Troubador said:

Yes they hibernate for the winter. Most of the snow has gone from our garden now so the birds can forage. My bro in law had 7 Fieldfares yesterday which, considering he hardly ever sees a thrush other than a Blackbird, got him pretty excited. I saw a Fieldfare a few streets away and we had two Redwings in the garden, but now the snow is gone they usually disperse across the nearby countryside.

Lee

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yes indeed Lee, the thaw has certainly changed things here. much more activity in the trees, bushes and park than in the garden, even the feeder is hardly visited. this morning the longtails are up high as are the tree sparrows, finches and dunnocks. certainly something up in the 'tops' they feed on. the 'others', even blackbirds are off somewhere.

the starlings went before the freeze, not seen since.

a huge flurry over half an hour or more of gulls, blackheaded and lesser, crows, jackdaws and a wood pigeon or two with a golden retriever, spaniel in a knitted waistcoat and bitza making uneasy neighbours turned out to be caused by someone on an early walk having spread a whole loaf across the park. at least it seems to be brown bread. the dog walkers must think i am a loonie, poking my head over at intervals with binos.

i saw a pied wagtail i believe, certainly smaller than a magpie and very black and white. very fast horizontal flight with a couple of swerves.

something has been bombing my freshly cleaned windows! perhaps the longtails but they must be very acrobatic to 'release' droppings at the correct angle so high up. maybe they see a rival in the reflection and attack, rear guns blazing?

Pied Waggers usually have a leisurely 'bounding' flight in which they rise and fall in what would be graceful curves if they didn't have their long tails following on behind. Of course if a Pied Wagger was being chased and was trying to evade, say, a Sparrowhawk, it would probably fly differently.

Lee

it was a quick impression just twenty metres away, up from ground, through open branches and away, behind bushes. all just solid black and white from behind, no other colour and no brown shown at that angle. not a magpie but bigger than sparrows or similar and slimmer than blackbird as axample.

OK. There is not much else it could be and especially coming up off the ground. Pied Waggers have a strange obsession with the London suburb of Chiswick or at least when they call it often sounds the same: Chizzick!

Lee

Troubador said:

OK. There is not much else it could be and especially coming up off the ground. Pied Waggers have a strange obsession with the London suburb of Chiswick or at least when they call it often sounds the same: Chizzick!

Lee

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im never likely to be too fussed about ticks and lists. i will look over the fence in the early morning a couple more times is all. it is open grass near canal with hedges and mature trees bordering, they could have mistaken it for a meadow or even for some bits of Chiswick. I cant find a canon sx 50 for 20 quid or we would be sure!

i dont want to be famous for finding a rare bird, just to identify carefully. but i wish they would co-operate and sit on the fence in perfect posing positions just like the photos show!

so far i have identified mutated sparrows which it turned out were dunnocks, a bird i had never heard of or seen despite being raised in Kent country and years in Wales and other places.

then of course my grey blackbird which no-one believed and got eaten by the sparrowhawk. thankgoodness i photographed that event! i KNOW it was grey, i am good with colours! i reckon it had some enzyme problem removed the red from the pigment so it didnt look brown ... and that gave it bad eyesight too, why it got eaten ...

my pale lady sparrow behaves very differently, more refined and quiet. not me projecting!

the black and white thing was not a magpie, it was among wood pigeons and a fair bit smaller.

the hawfinch was real! he even moved over to the bramble and turned around while i had a picture open, so there!

the owl, well ive seen plenty, they fly differently and he sat very upright too. i will wait to see him again on another dark eve.

but this bloody raptor has got me beat or else it IS a new species and i will be famous (if it ever comes back). it had no streaks or bars at all and was pale underneath. so Jape's hawk will be in the books soon and you heard of it here first. i just hope the bugger don't eat the pale lady.

i went out on a rare walk last eve to see what is on 't'other side' of the fence, apart from grass and sycamores.
there is a run of 80 yards or so of mixed hedging, mainly just chopped with trimmers like the10 yards of hawthorn but one run of 40 yards or so, although a single depth planting, is 15 to 20 feet in height, chopped up to 3 yards or so then overhangs a bit.this is cypress leylandii which most dislike but it has good cover, privet, hawthorn, hazel, and bits of holly and elder. although next to a path it seems to be where most birds hang out with occasional trips to the sycamores and other trees or down to forage. the small bits i can peer at are always backlit as the sun moves across and behind but this is where most of my bird visitors come from. it is neglected apart from the trimming they do every now and again. i shall contact the owners and try and ensure they dont trim it back during the next couple of months or so. can only hope.

Jape did you get an impression of size or shape of your raptor? This can be difficult from some angles.

Lee

hi Lee. chunky but smaller than buzzards. probably sparrowhawk or goshawk i suppose from wings but it was directly above me, gliding without any flap for a couple of seconds and i saw no bars or streaks on breast or tail or wing. pale breast and belly and tail, slightly darker wings that had a sort of pinkish buff colour but that could have been the light. the other thing that threw me was the tail seemed quite short so more like buzzard but smaller. at first i thought 'owl' which shows i am not very experienced!

saving for a camera and hoping to get legs working better so i can hop about and see more than glimpses!

i have ben watching a couple of greenfinches over weeks. i wasn't sure at first being new but got enough views most days to pick out the details. main concern was that many pics show them as quite green! probably where they got the name, jape ........ mine are drab and if green, just dark olive buff it seemed for weeks. but today, through trick of light or goodness knows what, same bird turned up, drab as always then as it hopped from branch the rare light caught it - instant green, even lemony on breast with faint thrushlike spotting! talking of thrushes, i have two come and get earthworms now, just need to look up what type. i reckon song thrush.

not a bad day, chaffinch, goldfinch, greenfinch and thrushes down in garden at last, apart from the usual crew. moving my chair round a bit and taking the stickers of the sliding door paid off. and its only lunch time.

i was probably the only person on the forum without binos. now i have them i sometimes dont realise i am looking through them for ages until my arms ache. they make all the difference. magnification of course but mainly the way they gather light. for months i watched backlit blurs and apart from the obvious with longtailed tits and size, most could have been sparrows for all i knew. now the streaks and blurs resolve with colour added even on dull days and i watch the goldfinches walking vertically up the bark, poking and prying and i see the chaffinches drinking dew in the first light from the twig buds; i can see a wren in the hedge depth and yup, the greenfinch finally turned green!

A flap flap g-l-i-d-e flap flap g-l-i-d-e sounds like a hawk rather than a falcon or harrier.

Lee

Troubador said:

A flap flap g-l-i-d-e flap flap g-l-i-d-e sounds like a hawk rather than a falcon or harrier.

Lee

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yes, surely was but we will never know and a trick of light and direct overhead angle hid the markings, tail wasn't long though. just one of those things, anomaly of vision. fun though for me and as good as it is to learn and look in books, seeing them is the value. i remember seeing a blue kingfisher in my paddock in Oz and everyone in the local pub laughed and told me to stop smoking funny weed. then years after i saw it again and got an identity of it as a rare visitor.

snow again but now sunshine and the first bumblebee of my year! it'll go hungry, no pollen or nectar anywhere.

2 chaffinch, 3 goldfinch, lots of visits from blackcap after a couple of days away, he actually scrapped with the great tits in mid air. asserting rights over the bird table when cock robin is away. dunnocks, tree and house sparrows, wren, all the usual tits including coaltit which have also been 'away'. no goldcrests for a while. 3 song thrushes together which is unusual here. starlings are back but just a couple. no gulls for a couple of days either and they are usually around the park. the dailies (collared dove, wood pigeons starting to bill and coo, robins and blackbirds) are out in the park mainly with jackdaws but drop in. crows are off somewhere too, maybe someone is ploughing.

The more familiar you get with your usual birds the more quickly you will spot an unusual visitor.

Lee

Hi jape

I have seen bubble bees also. I think they like snowdrops and crocus - they should be out?

Julie50 said:

Hi jape

I have seen bubble bees also. I think they like snowdrops and crocus - they should be out?

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there are a few, the snow battered them but maybe a bit of nectar. daffodils soon!
bubble bee, is that a local name your way? as kids in Kent we called them dumbledores long before Rowling used the name. and hedgehogs were hogwitches

Lol - no it is me misspelling! I've got flu so I'm not working particularly well!

everyone is aggressive today, the robin more than ever, dropping in on sparrows, dunnock, various tits, blackcap and even letting the blackbirds know he is around. he chased off a bemused chaffinch as well. no-one getting a feed! the bluetits hassle the coal tits, the wood pigeons have a go at each other and the collared dove who is looking really nervous.the great tit and the blackcap met in mid-air again, talons forward, beak agape but otherwise the great tits ignore it all and just fly in a circle round the robin and pinch a sunflower seed behind him and fly off.

i find the tits clever the way they take a peanut or large seed in their little beaks somehow and grasp it while they eat. the coaltit has a trick, instead of doing that, it rests a large peanut he can hardly get in his beak on a clump of moss and chips away at it.

i treated them all to raspberries, no takers.should have eaten them myself.

the sparrows can be surprisingly acrobatic, a swarm or cluster of gnats or similar appeared and the sparrows went nuts, hovering and hanging in the air, never seen that before!

i still cannot tell what the birds are that come to the twig tops everynow and again. they are pale and i never get much more of an impression than that, always in the tops and usually with bright light behind them. they have a robin type beak, not finches and not tits which i usually recognise and if the coal, blue or longtailed tits go up they flit about only a while. these others work along the highest twigs for minutes at a time then back to the lombardy poplars across the park or away. the blackcap hangs around in their company but comes down, they never do. they disappear for days at a time, usually the coldest and then come back. i have seen female chaffinch and a number of goldfinches up there but recognise them by white flashes or colour. these birds are focused on whatever they do and work along a branchlet then another. one day ...

even the usual local birds are very infrequent today. and nothing much on or over the park even. maybe a better feeder nearby! or some other food source.
it has given the blackcap opportunity, he pops in continually and is stuffing on sunflower hearts and mixed seed and also now risking the suet ball hanger.

one blackbird is collecting damp old leaves. maybe she is creating a compost heap for worms? bit dank for a nest.

collared dove looking very fed up now feeder trays are gone while the grossly diseased woodpigeon is around

edit: confirmed treecreeper over a few minutes
tits are all back, plus chaffinch and goldfinches

new bird, no idea what! top of 4m tree. smaller than thrush, larger than tits.
backlit as usual but seemed almost black, grey, white, two toned not brown at all with the lighter colour predominant but mainly black spots and streaks like a thrush but more so.


also single greenfinch tops of sycamores