Garden (Yard) List 2014 (1 Viewer)

[KenM]

A great start to the weekend while topping up the feeders this morning, only my 2nd record of this species in 8 years here, bubbling away on the mountainside (the birds, not me)

43 Black Grouse


(I was listening out for a possible first Black Redstart, so I got the 'Black' part right!)

Richard

C'mon Richard...we all know it was an early returning female Cuckoo...:-O

 

[Richard Prior]

C'mon Richard...we all know it was an early returning female Cuckoo...:-O

Ahaa, I'm saving that one for later when my total will sail past you (I hope) (It would have got frostbite up there this morning)
Anyway, just to rub it in, I've just had another first for the year in our overgrown Christmas Tree (that the neighbours keep suggesting gently that we cut down):

44 Firecrest


Half century here I come!

Richard

 

[Jos Stratford]

A great start to the weekend while topping up the feeders this morning, only my 2nd record of this species in 8 years here, bubbling away on the mountainside (the birds, not me)

43 Black Grouse

Oo, that's a good one.

I have an outside chance of getting this one during the year - flushed two near my feeders in autumn 2008, my only record.

After a week of nice sun and good butterflies, possibility of snow tomorrow!

 

[Jos Stratford]

16-17 March. All Change!

What a difference a few days makes! One moment basking in sunshine with butterflies fluttering and larks singing a'high, the next a blanket of snow again, the wind whipping up drifts and temperatures several degrees below zero! And the result at Labanoras, the surreal sight of Cranes dancing in the snow, a Great Grey Shrike huddling upon a perch top and a world returned to white, no butterflies anymore and just a single Skylark, wisely heading south! Still a dribble of incoming migrants with Chaffinches congregating around the feeding station, Mallards on a patch of unfrozen drainage ditch and Bean Geese flying over, but overall its a picture of spring temporarily suspended.

Another ten nestboxes put in the forest, some in areas of hazel in the hope of dormice ...and needed to re-site one of the boxes from the previous week - two days after hammering the box to a particularly mighty old oak, the tree fell in the storms that brought the snow!


47. Mallard
48. Chaffinch

 

[Richard Prior]

16-17 March. All Change!


Another ten nestboxes put in the forest, some in areas of hazel in the hope of dormice ...and needed to re-site one of the boxes from the previous week - two days after hammering the box to a particularly mighty old oak, the tree fell in the storms that brought the snow!


47. Mallard
48. Chaffinch

You don't know your own strength Jos, hammer less vigourously next time

Here in the Alps the snow's still melting (for now at least), so another good morning, even though it started frustratingly with two that 'got away' - as I was walking back home from my early am constitutional I found a Meadow Pipit in the field behind the house, and a Black Woodpecker flew between me and home,aargh! Naturally I spent the morning (err, working) in and around the garden hoping to add them to this year's Garden list, but no joy. Except that I managed to add 4 new species, the first returning Black Redstarts, a Serin over, a Jay(resident year round but the first within sight and sound of the garden this year). Best of all, I picked out 2 Stock Doves in a flock of c200 migrating Woodpigeons, the first garden tick since Merlin last April, taking me to 108 here since arriving in 2006.
So, ticking along nicely:
45 Black Redstart
46 Serin
47 Jay
48 Stock Dove

Dead level with Jos I notice!

Richard

 

[Larry Lade]

28. Brown Creeper

 

[Richard Prior]

No doubt your total will soon be 'creeping up' on the rest of us Larry!

 

[Larry Lade]

Sure hope so, Richard. It has really been slow here in Missouri. Our weather has been strange here for several months, below freezing one day, "Spring-type weather the next, then back to sub-freezing, etc. The birds are somewhat at a loss as to where they are supposed to be! Hopefully things will even out before too much longer!

 

[Jos Stratford]

You don't know your own strength Jos, hammer less vigourously next time

Here in the Alps the snow's still melting ...

A couple of pictures:

1. The said oak now lying in the snow.
2. My access route in a bit of a blizzard.

Forecast is a rapid warming over next days, plus 13 by the end of the week. Back to butterflies and migrants!

 

[joannec]

Makes me feel cold just looking at those pictures, Jos..........nice and sunny here; the migrants will soon be flooding in.

 

[timsg80]

40. Chiffchaff
One was calling in the garden this morning. Spring is here!

 

[Richard Prior]

The warm weather has tempted two more species to venture higher up:

49 Water Pipit
50 Black Kite

There were 13 Water Pipits feeding together this morning in the fields behind the house which are half covered with snow, the pipits do this every late March/early April, they wait around here until the snow's gone from the mountain pasture where they nest,earliest ever here by two days. There is usually just the one pair of Black Kites that come to nest up here, they are very numerous lower down, around Geneva in particular.
Snow forecast for the weekend, but not as much as Jos has had recently!

 

[halftwo]

The year's first Lesser-black baced gulls flew along the valley today.

 

[Richard Prior]

Oh, the shame of it!
Just realised I've double counted Jay, so today's new species brings up the half century.
50 Chiffchaff

Richard

 

[KenM]

Two flypast Mandarin beautifully lit by the am sun, as was an almost ''fluorescent lime'' streaked RNParakeet heading South, 9 LRedpolls, 2 Goldfinch, 4 Redwing, a Song Thrush and a Blackcap in the grdn. certainly got me off to a good start. Thus I celebrated with the usual cup of tea...perhaps a little premature, after which I just managed to get an ''in focus'' shot of no.127!....before it vanished over the roof which in turn defaults to no.55 for the grdn.year list. :eek!:

 

[halftwo]

Meadow pipits over this morning. : 49.

 

[Chris-Leeds]

24. Jackdaw, saw a black backed gull last week but not sure which type it was. The list is crawling along at the moment.

 

[Larry Lade]

29. Turkey Vulture (a flyover)
* Not only new year bird for our yard, but also a new year bird for my 2014 Missouri List.

 

[KC Foggin]

Heck Larry, stand in my yard toward afternoon and there are usually a couple of dozen headed to the intracostal for the evening

 

[timsg80]

41. House Sparrow
What an exciting year tick.....
Lots of Chiffchaffs singing now. Hoping for a Swallow sometime soon.....