Kitchen Garden Forum

Yesterday I was inundated with Fieldfares, Redwing and Starlings but today I've gone up a league. Starlings are quite rare here.
I have the most enormous finch-flock with me. Siskins, Linnets, Redpolls, Bramblings, Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Chaffinches. There are really several thousand birds. I have Birches and Alders which are housing the Redpoll, Siskin and Goldfinches and the Greenfinch are all squabbling over the nuts with the odd Siskin. The Blue, Great and Longtailed Tits have all disappeared for the present. Even the Sparrows have gone. The Linnets are down on the lawn and in the orchard and all the other trees are literally full of birds.
I am working down the plot and they don't seem to be worried by me at all. I have just walked up to the house across the lawn and the Linnets lift off and go only about 10ft. I have no idea what they are feeding on.
These birds I suspect are all destined for Scandinavia for the Summer.
Certainly, by ringing reports, we know that this is where where most of our winter migrants spend their Summers.
At this time we get pre-migration gatherings and they are very exciting to me.
JB.

Sounds great, Johnboy! We had a flock of fieldfares passing over yesterday, but siskins now breed in our village which they didn't do until about 10 years ago.

Frist spring arrivals yesterday: two wheatears at the moor edge, very similar time to previous years. The next one to look forward to is the swallow which usually comes between 5th and 10th April!

Just had a phone call from my son, about 15 miles away, nearer the Lancashire coast: first swallow today!

Hi Monika,
Yesterday was the turn of the Yellow Wagtails and they all seem to drop in for a quick feed on my greensward and in the orchard. They are there for about 20 minutes and they are off again. Several small flocks.
Very colourful.
JB.

Forgot to log we had two Swallows on Thursday - not sure if they are going to be our resident pair for the summer as we haven't seen them since.

Anyone heard the Cuckoo yet?

I heard one yesterday . . . does that count or is it cheating (we are quite a long way south)

It has to count Goldilox, and it's nice to know it's on it's way.

I'll give him your address

Saw a beautiful woodpecker last week too, he sat very obligingly on an oak branch whilst I ogled him.

Long-tailed tits made it into tenth place in the R.S.P.B.Garden Birdwatch survey.Quite a pleasant surprise
Watched a Collared Dove balancing on our rambling rose delicately picking off the berries from the ivy.Rather it than me,the thorns on that rose are big and vicious

A few years ago we were talking to one of our sons who lives in the south of France when he mentioned that he had just heard the first cuckoo of the year - about a week later we heard the first one here. We wondered, rather fancifully, whether it might be the same one!

The Cuckoo has Cuckooed in Milton Bryan this morning.

And just to make a good day even better, i have just got back from cutting the lawns at Home farm, because it was too wet to do them Thursday.
Anyway when i was about half way through i noticed the first Swallowof the year, by the time i had finished there were ten.

Dear OH,
They seem to arrive earlier every year. Let's pray for a spell of warm weather with plenty of insects so they can fatten up after their long journey. Wonder if they ever suffer from jet lag?

Our first swallows arrived this week in sunny Yorkshire which does make you think summer is on the way. But my best sighting this week was a Yellow wagtail, which I've never seen up here before. We regularly get pied and grey wagtails, but this is a first for me. It was a most beautiful bright yellow with a yellowish brown back and the funny thing was that a male pied wagtail was strutting his stuff trying to impress it.