Kitchen Garden Forum

The first brambling of the season arrived yesterday!

Hi Monika,
Same here and aren't they handsome. About 50 landed on the stubble alongside my place. On Sunday I had a flock of Yellow Hammers which I have never seen before. I was unaware that they flocked. From now on we get flocks of mixed Finches and it is amazing to see anything up to about 2000 birds together and also amazing the mix of birds.
Bramblings had a field day a couple of years ago when a crop of Linseed was not harvested, due to the weather, and they lived the entire winter on this lost crop. I think the BBC filmed it but it may have been someone else. (am not too sure of my facts there.)Just at present Long Tailed Tits are in vogue
and as I worked yesterday they seemed to be everywhere. They are a truly beautiful little bird and they are constantly calling to each other, so sweet.
JB.

Your place sounds wonderful! We have no arable crops in our area at all but a few years ago, the RSPB at Leighton Moss in Morecambe Bay sowed a crop of mixed grain and deliberately did not harvest them and all winter the field was covered in finches, wonderful!

Our son in Clapham, North Yorkshire (about half way between Skipton and the west coast) has had lots of siskins already this year, so I am now waiting for these little beauties.

Our bird feeder attracts the bullfinches at the moment and just one nuthatch as well as all the tits, including long-tailed ones. Occasionally we see a great spotted woodpecker as well, but not regularly. Greenfinch numbers have dropped dramatically this year, probably because of avian trichomoniasis.

Hi Monica,
It is strange really but Siskins seem to pass us by because I have not seen or heard any so far but in my friends garden on Monday the place was absolutely full of them and that is only .75 of a mile from here. We have good numbers of Greenfinches and Chaffinches and occasionally Bullfinches.
I have a family of Woodpeckers that nest on the plot in a hollow Apple tree and they are now regular feeders from the nut basket. This is the first year that I have had a nut basket as there is masses of natural food around but it is me that cannot get around so rather than going out to see them the nut basket brings them to me. I have 18 acres of stubble next to me and 56 acres at the rear of me and next year 60 acres of it will be Potatoes with a 200 ft belt left fallow because I will not have Potatoes directly alongside my vegetable plot any longer.
JB.

I only very rarely get Brambling again no arable nearby but do get masses of Chaffinch. A few years ago I got fed up with peanut red bag feeders blowing off the pergola we hung them from so I made rigid feeders with two sides mesh and two sides wood and screwed them to the posts. Ever since then we have had loads of Spotted Woodpeckers, they bring their young each year to feed and teach where an easy meal is. We get odd Siskins on the nuts - Monika, does your son feed them something they particularly like? Also the odd Nuthatch which chase other things off, I think I'd fly from that spike of a beak. I've volunteered to survey the birds for our area so I'm going to have to get on with that shortly. (Monika - we went to Skipton yesterday and afterwards took our flask of coffee up to Pinhaw, what fantastic views from up there!)

We are inundated with young pheasants. Someone has bred and released several hundred. On one run last week I saw flocks of 20-30 (most unusual - only see 2-3 together).. and we have had 3 in the graden two days running: one with a deformed neck twisted to one side..

Our turkeys take one look and the male gets all aggressive and starts displaying:-)

Geoff, siskins will eat black sunflower seeds, peanuts and also nyjer seeds from the tiny little holes on nyjer seed feeders. They are the only birds, other than goldfinches, of course, that will eat regularly from these feeders. Their beaks must be pointed enough!

For the last 5 years or so, we have had siskins breeding in a conifer plantation just above the village, at Crookrise, towards Grassington, and see juveniles on the feeders every spring. Until then, the nearest breeding place was Strid Woods at Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, about 5 miles away. And, I guess, until about 10 years ago, siskins just came as winter visitors from Scotland and Scandinavia!