Very busy at the bird feeder today! (1 Viewer)

[JeffMoh]

Looks like gardens in the UK - and Oz - have been busy while I was away!

Longbow: I think the presence of species one year and their non-appearance the next is often/usually down to changes in the food supply. Also, I find feeders in the USA & Canada tend to be quieter this time of year because there's lots of "natural" food around; and feeders have stopped being swamped with breeding birds and chicks.

Had a great time in Utah, tho' I had bad altitude sickness for the first two days. Brilliant weather. Unbelievable landscapes. Incredible skyscapes. Not bad for birds: my trip list looks to be about 65 species. I think I got a couple of lifers, too, but need to confirm the IDs. No bear or moose, unfortunately, but plenty of other wildlife (chipmunks, ground squirrels, deer, bison, antelope, coyote, raccoon).

Jeff
www.jeffincypress.blogspot.com

 

[Bananafishbones]

I will catch up with your blog Jeff.... once you have caught up with it. Sounds a good trip though.

 

[earleybird]

We had the most tremendous storm this morning with torrential rain. The rain was so hard that I couldn't see to drive even with a triple speed wiper on the car ! The rain was bouncing several feet up off the roads and creating an inpenetratable wall of water vapour.
Not surprisingly we haven't seen anything in the garden until this afternoon when a couple of female and several juvenile Chaffinches made an appearance and a pair of Great Tits.

if there was one single important lesson I have learnt this year it is feeding consistency. :t:

Living in a small village in the middle of no-where it is often hard to maintain consistent stock of all the different types of seed and suet/fat balls etc consequently we have lost both our pairs of green Woodpeckers and G S Woodpeckers together with I'm sure lots of finches and tits because frequently they have come to feed and found nothing for days on end.:-C

The second thing i've learnt is we have to re-organise our feeding areas to both facilitate photography and keep all the bloomin Corvids Woody's and Doves and other flying dustbins away from the smaller bird feeding zones Grrrr:C

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Loads of screaming Swifts last night at my parents. No doubt they will soon be gone!!

CB

 

[karpman]

Loads of screaming Swifts last night at my parents. No doubt they will soon be gone!!

CB

LOL.

Had a Hobby hawking over the garden other evening a week or so ago now i guess.

Got some not great pictures outlines mainly but will post em later

Karpman

 

[Bananafishbones]

11 Greenfinch on the feeders this morning.

 

[Disneynut1973]

Jeff can't imagine getting altitude sickness, it must feel quite odd?

CB my Swifts are still around though i've only counted 5 instead of the usual 12.

Karpman nice garden tick:t: Dave I've had an increase in young Dunnocks at the moment, there is up to 4 around and a couple of adults.

At the moment though we have a rather sad looking Collared Dove in the front garden. They are usually pretty flighty but this one hasn't moved when people walked past or when i've shut the windows. It's just sat in the flower bed, it tried to eat some food on the floor but looked like it was struggling to eat :-C It's not looking too good.

 

[ilbirdwatch1]

Wow, I never new hummingbirds are so territorial; I have two males chasing each other and guarding my feeder. I’ve also have a female showing up on a regular basis. I’ve even had a male chase of Goldfinches and my Carolina Wren if it’s in the same area. I’ve also seen them take on a couple wasps and bees, which come to the feeder.

The goldfinches are still strong at the thistle feeder. I’ve also noticed the females are getting a bit darker. The same goes for the House Sparrows.

I think I had a news species of Dove show up at the feeder. It looked like a Mourning Dove, but lacked the blue around the eye and seemed a bit longer. It also had some black/brown on its chest. I’ll upload pics on flickr later.


Over all it’s been quite. The blackbirds, grackles, and starling have all moved on. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I do miss the variation.

Thanks for reading and happy birding!

 

[Bananafishbones]

I think I had a news species of Dove show up at the feeder. It looked like a Mourning Dove, but lacked the blue around the eye and seemed a bit longer. It also had some black/brown on its chest. I’ll upload pics on flickr later.

Hi ilbirdwatch
did you get to ID your Dove, it always good to get a new species:t:

 

[longbow]

Thanks for the input, Jeff.

 

[Azzy]

Sounds like there's been plenty of activity around the place. I had quite a close encounter yesterday with one of the grey shrike-thrushes. I could hear it singing over the fence, so I crept up to my side of the fence and went to peek my head over. The only thing is, he must have heard something moving, and at the exact moment my head popped over the top, he flew up to land in the same place my head was (to investigate the sound of my approach) only to realise there was a rather large and surprised looking human face there I felt the breeze from his wings as he quickly pulled a u-turn in my face. I'm not sure who was more surprised!

 

[ilbirdwatch1]

Hi ilbirdwatch
did you get to ID your Dove, it always good to get a new species:t:

Not yet Bananafishbones! I've been pretty busy these last few days and this weekend I will be out of town. I'm hoping Sunday, I will be able to get the pics off of the cam and upload it for ID-ing!

I think there could be a good possibility that it's a mourning dove, but it looked a bit different. It was hanging around with mourning doves. Usually we only have 2 sets of MD's visit the feeders and on that day there was around 10.

I'll get it uploaded this weekend and hopefully it will be a different species or a mix.

 

[Bananafishbones]

Just had a male Bullfinch in, unusually it is feeding under the feeders :t:..... first since April 29th


Off to the lakes now so have a great weekend all

Dave

 

[earleybird]

have a great time at the lakes Dave. Double check lenses, batteries, chargers etc we want to see lot of great pics on your return:t:

 

[Cheshire Birder]

No sound of any Swifts this evening!!

CB

 

[Oscillate_Wildly]

No longer have a bird garden as moved house (although we did have blue tits nesting in May) hopefully looking to get some stuff sorted for autumn, window feeder, maybe a nyjer seed feeder as few gold + green finches around. The only problem is next door have about 9 cats + the house isn't very garden bird watching friendly.

Great to read up on peoples gardens though, I always enjoy bananafishbone's posts even if he does make me green with envy!

 

[michael23]

hi everyone, been fairly quiet around my feeders, just the usual tits feeding up, but they have emptied the feeders now, i brought a new fat ball / suet feeder yesterday, for £5.99 with 4 fatballs, a superb chunk of wood which has 5 feeding holes, fed up of squirrel biting through the plastics, but thankfully he cant penetrate the steel! But he is almost into the sunflower heart feeder tho. So got another new purchase at some point.
Talking of sunflower hearts, im not happy with wilkos, they have put there prices upto £2.25 from £1.98.

ps Hoping to drwa the woodpeckers in with the new fatball feeder.

 

[Dan123]

Activity on the feeders seems to have picked up. All sorts of Blue, Great Tits and the return of the Coal Tits, seem to be franticly eating Hearts and the Peanuts. I am pleased to say the nuts are getting the most attention these days that they ever did throughout the year!

The Jays have also been around, plus the return of the Blackbirds, who I haven't seen much of latly.The duunock has gone walkabouts though, so hopefully they will return soon, considering they where nesting at the side of the house!

 

[Cheshire Birder]

A lot of activity this morning - Buzzard over heading to the presumed nest site, a Jay, family of Goldfinches and two Pheasants. The latter consisted of juvenile standing on one of the feeders and a male strutting past later on. Two more species for the local breeding list this year!!

CB

 

[Disneynut1973]

Well it looks like my Swifts have gone, not a single one the past two evenings, a little sad to see them go, they have been very entertaining this year.

Still plenty of young Blue & Great Tits, Goldfinch, Dunnocks, Robins and Sparrows around though.

A Gatekeeper butterfly just landed on the front window ledge - think it overshot the Buddleia which is right in front of the window!!