Small things that cheer us.

I have three little sparrows, running around, quite close to the house. It has been a long time since any were in my garden. Always been lots of blackbirds ad thrushes and blue tits, bu no sparrows. Hope they stay. The pigeons are numerous and leave an awful mess, but their habitat has been taken over by housing estates, so where else can they go?

I love watching the birds on my feeder, only yesterday I was watching a Jackdaw balancing on my seed feeder, with great difficulty but he managed quite a few mouthfuls.

Next was Wood Pigeon, looking very confused as he can't reach anything. I have had a Greater Spotted Woodpecker on my peanut feeder, Blue Tits & Great Tits. We also get Long Tailed Tits on the telephone wires.

Biggest problem is the pair of Gulls who reside on my neighbours roof, damn pests & the noise they make. None of us can put bread or oats out now as they "dive-bomb" even attacking my cat, quite how they think he's a danger. They are a menace

Our cat tries to be macho and sits under the bird table. The birds ignore him - how humiliating. Yesterday was lively due to the wind - the birds seemed to have trouble landing on the table but manged to get a grip and eat; later in the day the garden was covered with leaves and pink rose petals and the sky was a wonderful steel grey with the sun showing over the edges of the clouds. How beautiful to watch, and probably the best tranquiliser that can be found.

It is blowing a hooley here at the moment, the trees are thrashing and writhing in the wind.

DH and I had to go out today and were driving along absolutely mesmerised by the way the trees, bushes, hedgerow shrubs and wild flowers were all moving around in different ways and all showing different shades of green. Nothing was still, even the most hidden leaves, seen when we were stationary at some rural roadworks were dipping and bobbing. We could have driven round all afternoon, seeking trees and woodland just to watch the movement. Now we are home the front lawn is smothered in leaves off the horse chestnuts on our boundary and I am sitting at my desk looking out on a sea of moving green.

Is this a small pleasure? A brief pleasure certainly, summer gales like this are few and far between.

We've had a lot more bees this yer than we've had for a long time. Really big bumble bees and honey bees too. Not many butterflies and I don't suppose there will be for a while because it's been chucking it down for a couple of days now.

Hardly a butterfly here this year but more bees on the geraniums than I can remember for a long time.

I was thinking the other day how few butterflies I have seen this year. We have a lane running down the side of where we live, bordering crop fields and wild meadowland. Last year you couldn't move for butterflies; this year very few. I have had a couple of red admirals in the garden and a few tortoishells but for the most part they have been conspicuous by their absence.

Various pieces of music cheer me, but my young brother says that when the ATM says, " Your cash is being counted", it's the cheeriest message of all!

My Sister and I were sitting in her garden a couple of weeks ago, and we were subjected to a cacophony of squawking and cheeping.
My Sister was not happy about this 'racket' until I pointed out that the culprits were baby starlings. As we sat there, the babies + the parents landed on her lawn and we sat there mesmerised as parents fed their squawking babies.
The babies are now grown, and all is quiet.
Guess what.
My Sister misses them now that she understands what the racket was all about and is hoping that there will be more.

We had a cat until a few weeks ago so we did not encourage birds into our garden by putting out food. However when the cat died we noticed birds started coming into the garden, so we have just bought a bird table and started putting some food out. Hopefully we will get more visitors soon and reading this has reminded me to put out water too, although there are plenty of puddles today!

I've just read posts saying people are pleased to have magpies.. .well, they are also some of the biggest looters of eggs & nestling from nests along with jays. Beautiful to look at but most definitely not to be welcomed to the bird table if you want to keep a good bird population in your garden!

We have a selection of bird feeders close to our kitchen window as well as a feeder stuck on the window itself. The birds are a constant source of interest & delight, especially at this time of the year, with young families of greater spotted woodpeckers, greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, blue tit, great tits, coal tits, robins and so on. We don't tolerate grey squirrels at any price - these rats with furry tails are enthusiastically discouraged - they are responsible for raiding birds' nests & eating both eggs & fledglings. I'm not sure how many people realise this. We feed the birds year round & our dear GS aged 4 knows all the different species & spends hours watching them through his binoculars. We have a bird bath too - much entertainment from that as well!

Tizliz - loved your oyster catcher photo in your garden. I used to live very near the sea and remember being dive bombed by lots of arctic terns whenever I hung out the washing. (And also cursing them when they left their disgusting mess all over my clean nappies).

We get all varieties in the garden, including a large and small robin, collar doves, wood pigeons, sparrows and occasionally seagulls. It's a delight to watch them; we have just bought a birdbath and put some smooth stones in the bottom as evidently it helps the birds get a better footing; however, only one so far has had a bath - the rest drink from it! We get a lot of pleasure watching them.

We get lots of magpies on the bird table and I have noticed they appear to dip and of course drop food into the water bowl. I have to clean it out regularly. The pigeons are very messy eaters and our dog goes out and cleans up after them!

An annual visitor, very noisy and have to be careful when the chicks are running round the garden - the adults divebomb you if you dare go out!

What an enjoyable thread - I love all the photos.
I only feed the birds in my garden through the winter months. I do, however, always have water down for them in a shallow dish. It's mainly used by sparrows who have a drink and then a bath but my little dog seems to prefer this water to her nice, clean water in doors!

Right now I am looking out my living room window (flat, second floor) and watching a pair of swans swim up the river with their eight little cygnets. I can also see six ducks, plus numerous pigeons and seagulls. The occasional squirrel passes through - using both trees and roofs to make its way along. The evening brings bats from underneath the nearby bridge - I'm not so fond of them and make sure my windows are shut! A heron sometimes comes down from further upstream and stands stock still for ages scanning the water, I've never seen him/her catch anything. Add to that the magpies, tits, blackbirds, doves etc and I feel really fortunate.

It's so lovely living within 5 yards of a river that changes colour every day and attracts so much wildlife. You would never believe that I am very near the centre of a large city. And although so close, it has never flooded so we don't have that worry.

I am lucky enough to have badgers visiting every night. This is an old photo from a time when up to 6 appeared at once, but only 3 come these days, one of which is a youngster who arrives when it is still daylight. Better than TV viewing, but costs a fortune in peanuts.

I love the birds, enjoy watching them each day, but I really miss the squirrels we had visit our last garden, they were so funny, always brought a smile.

We live in a flat but have a communal garden, from our living room window we have a beautiful magnolia tree, we have hung a feeder on there which is squirrel proof. We can watch the little birds feeding and any seeds that drop on the grass the bigger birds gobble up. The squirrel is not impressed.
Never grow tired of watching them very relaxing.

The squirrel I mean

Dear little thing!

Annifrance I really envy you seeing hoopoes in your garden. Whenever I go to France or Spain I always look out for them and get really excited when I see one! They are sometimes seen in southern England but I've yet to see one here even though I live in Bournemouth.

I had a squirrel-proof feeder - see picture. I have now replaced it with one that works!