Kitchen Garden Forum

During the past two days of beautiful weather, I got the urge to stick L plates on my bins and go birdwatching again....it's been a long time. I went to a little Nature Reserve down the road and thoroughly enjoyed myself..what a gem! And right on my doorstep! I went again yesterday, too.

I was beside myself after having excellent views of a stunning Green Woodpecker, close up view of a female Sparrowhawk, looking extremely miffed that it's prospective lunch had just took off, scaring everything else off with it's alarm call...... and I was then rewarded by a beautiful Barn Owl flying six feet above my head. Oh bliss!

Cheers!

Dear Elaine, just goes to show, people don't have to spend a fortune to get a lot of pleasure.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Hi Elaine, glad you had such a good time. such pleasure on your doorstep, barn owls are beautiful !
We also have a bird watching area near us, the link is on my signature. I live in a country area, last sunday we had a beautiful young cock pheasant on our shed roof, quite often we see little owls they are the one owl that hunt in the daytime, and we hear quite a few tawny owls at night.I wonder if the green woodpeckers are more shy, we see the great spotted woodpecker more often, the green rarely.

Sounds lovely, Elaine. You live in a grand birdwatching area, I think, and, when we still travelled quite a lot, often popped across to the coast near you, particularly to Spurn Point at migration time. Once, after a really foggy night in October with onshore winds, we had to stop the Landrover several times on the long road to the Point to pick up and move to the side exhausted birds which had come in over the North Sea and had just flopped to the ground, including many robins. There were also woodcocks, redwings and fieldfares, thousands of goldcrests and a beautifully marked great grey shrike.

Nowadays we mostly stick around more locally, but it's great just to count about 25 bird species from our sitting room window, as we did today, including the first brambling of the winter.

Oh, it was a real tonic! For one reason and another, I haven't had much time for birdwatching for the past six years...funny how that coincides with the time we took our allotment! I hadn't realised how much I had missed it till now. I used to go birding in all weathers, every week without fail in those days.

Monika, you're so right, we are very lucky to have so many wonderful birdwatching areas around here and lots of differing habitats too. Spurn and Kilnsea have always been my favourite spot and in the days when I didn't have a car, had to use the local public transport, which took an hour and a half on a good day. We also have, Tophill Low, near Driffield, Far Ings Nature Reserve near Barton, just over the river. I also love Flamborough and Bempton Cliffs for the sea birds and Filey Dams. We had some superb migrants at Spurn over the years, some quite rare ones too. I've never been a "Twitcher" though, if there is a rarity where I am heading for, I'll look for it but I've never gone out of my way to "twitch".

Nature's Babe. I love Barn Owls..well all owls, to be honest. Short Eared Owls are also diurnal and these are about on this little reserve too, along with Little Owls. The Owls with yellow/orange eyes are the ones you are most likely to see hunting during the day, though the dark eyed Barn Owl makes an exception when it's feeding young, to it's more usual dawn/dusk forays. Green Wood peckers spend most of their time feeding on the ground, so unless it's perched, or in flight, they are a bit tricky to spot!

It was wonderful...I had 22 species on Monday and 25 yesterday...all within 2 hours, both days.
And the ironing still hasn't been done!!
Cheers.

Cheers.

Ironing, whats that Elaine ? I buy easycare, smooth and stretch fold pop in a warm airing cupboard for a while - I am not lazy loads of washing from my elderly mum daily so I cut corners
Starlings seem to be recovering, I had to move the fat block from the bird feeder to the end of the garden, so many starlings were squabbling around it, now the smaller birds might get a feed.

We had our first bramblings (5 or 6) of the winter today, though they have been about in the area for about 3 weeks. That must mean that it's already jolly cold in Scandinavia.

No sighting of the waxwings yet in the village.

Hi Monika. Bramblings are such pretty birds...and I haven't seen a Waxwing for such a long time. Now I might just "twitch" a Waxwing if it's fairly local!
I only have a small garden, with just the usual garden birds but they're not gracing my feeders at the moment...they have probably de-camped to the lovely little reserve down the road!
As you said in another thread...it is very quiet on here.
Cheers.

First reed bunting in the garden today, earlier than usual. They don't usually turn up in the garden until the food on the moor runs out, so it must be getting scarce now.

I'm hoping we get some waxwings soon. Last year during the snow we had a number of migrating species in the garden we don't often see, so we're stocking up with all kinds of birdfood this winter so we can encourage them all.

I'm afraid I spend hours with the binnoculars watching the birds in our garden when I should be doing other more productive household tasks. After a while you start to recognise the regulars. This year we have one piebald mottled rook who's a regular visitor with his little family.

But I just wish I could discourage all those darned ferral pigeons but keep all the other birds coming.

Sad day yesterday. I've never seen a Waxwing up here (had them one Winter where I worked in Bentham on a large Cotoneaster tree) but I found a dead one on the lawn yesterday. I wonder if it was just exhausted and had dropped out of a passing flock. Will be keeping an eye out for live ones.

I saw a Yaffle yesterday.
Heard it nicely and then saw it moving apong the top of some dead trees in the hedge a couple of hundred yards in front of me.
Such a distinctive call.

Geoff wrote:Sad day yesterday. I've never seen a Waxwing up here (had them one Winter where I worked in Bentham on a large Cotoneaster tree) but I found a dead one on the lawn yesterday. I wonder if it was just exhausted and had dropped out of a passing flock. Will be keeping an eye out for live ones.

That is sad Geoff, especially when it must already have largely completed its long journey. . Yes, I guess it probably was exhaustion or lack of food.. Possibly a youngster who didn't quite have the strength to keep up. I've got a stock of wrinkly apples and sultanas handy in case any pass by here.