Birds - winter migrants on your patch?

We were also visited by flocks of waxwings in December. DH v excited because he had never seen any beofre in spite of being a keen birdwatcher all his life (spent a good deal of his schooldays playing truant, birdwatching!). The flocks were about fifty or sixty strong. We got some good photos too .

Also had fieldfares, but that is an annual occurence, along with redwings. There are a lot of holly berries and rowan berries around, which they love. The local blackbirds get a bit cross when the foreigners arrive and pinch all their food.

Owl sightings have been fun: tawnies, barn owls and little owls.

We have seen fewer roe deer over the last year. There is talk of deer populations being high, but they appear to have dropped near us over the last couple of years.

Sadly, we saw a dead female red deer (probably pregnant) beside the road on the way to archery practice last week.

The only unusual birds around here have been the seagulls... stealing the food I put out for our usual visitors.. Mr and Mrs Blackbird and Mr and Mrs Robin are pottering around on the patio patiently waiting for me to get my boots on to see what offerings I have for them today...

My son lives in Twickenham and they have green parakeets there. Ex-pets that either escaped or let loose some time ago and have bred. They are all over the area - Richmond, Marblehill, has hundreds of them. Considering that they are a tropical bird they seem to have thrived even in our cold winters. It is odd to see these bright green little birds flying in their flocks with the funny little noise they make.

Not a migrant, but we had the most beautiful bullfinch in the garden yesterday.

We have mistle thrushes, blackbirds, jay,robin, wren, wood pigeon, tits great, blue and long tail and the red kite keeps hovering overhead. But the mistle thrushes are real bully's and nothing else gets a look in.

dorsetpennt we have the Parakeets all over West London they roost in the trees in our park whole flocks of them , they screech and screech very loudly.. there is a story that they were birds that escaped from the film studios in Ealing while they were filming The African Queen but who know where they came from, they sure have adapted to our weather for sure.

We had goldfinches yesterday on some plants that I had left the seed heads on (deliberately).

phoenix Haven't seen a bullfinch in years. One of my favourite birds too!

I don't like those parakeets. DD has them around her garden. They seem unnatural!

j07 Bullfinches do seem to be declining, this was the first one I had seen in absolute ages! I called Mr P to come and see it and he didn't remember ever seeing one before!

We've had the waxwings and got very excited about them as we had never seen them before. We are not experts but knew they were unusual. Occoasionally we get a woodpecker but mainly it is blue tits, robins and bullfinches.

We used to get those parakeets in Esher, everywhere but the rugby club claimed they were the first place in the country to get them. I suspect many places made the same claim. When I told DS he just shrugged his shoulders and said we get loads of them at school. He was in Richmond Park.

Saw waxwings on WinterWatch last week - what a fabulous sight! Those who have seen these are so lucky We seem to have the usual suspects in our garden, but a lot of blackbirds (counted 9 on the ground amongst the bird-food the other day) and I believe a lot come over from Scandinavia for the winter. Crazy the amount of time wasted chasing each other instead of getting on with the business of actually eating! Sometimes see a red kite glass but you live in just the right area to see them don't you - I've not seen a thrush for ages.

parakeets definitely did not come down from the arctic
I agree it is weird to see them overhead in the Thames area. They sound all wrong.

Two fieldfares have arrived, otherwise it's the mix as before.
I feel sorry for the ground-feeding birds, at first they didn't seem to understand what was happening to their tail feathers (dragging in the snow!)
My sister has one parakeet in her garden (3 last year) near Southport, possibly the furthest North. She often has a field-full of noisy geese, just behind her house.

We're looking out for waxwings. We've seen fieldfares and redwings.

I was just going to look up a thrush that was on my bird table today; I don't think it was a redwing [haven't seen one for years but this is the time of year I used to see them]. It was very big [but may be because it was all fluffed up]and had a lot of black about it's head.

Sounds like it might have been a fieldfare tegan
There are the song and mistle types that are spotty all over
Fieldfares and redwings are similar looking - they have an eyebrow marking and different patches of colour rather than an all over dappled look. The mature fieldfares that are stripping my bushes have a peachy chest. The younger ones don't. Whitish back ends when flying.
OMG - longest link ever...
www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/fieldfare_tcm9-18269.jpg%3Fwidth%3D530%26crop%3D(230,342,1104,834)&imgrefurl=http://www.rspb.org.uk/fieldfare&h=298&w=530&sz=19&tbnid=ckTL9DKHzb9HiM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=162&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfieldfare%2Bimage%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=fieldfare+image&usg=__hk37l_avvRxYh9-NoFD3bx9adMc=&docid=Qc8BXr3MGQnlVM&sa=X&ei=Wkb-UKi7HIS50QXRyoDoDA&ved=0CGIQ9QEwDw&dur=13520

Peachy chest! That's the bit that was confusing me. Just going to have a look through me binoculars again....

Nope; decided it's a Redwing. Quite large and has white stripes round it's eyes.

They are really similar. There was a redwing joining my ones this morning. But pyracanthus nearly denuded so they have shoved off now I think

...changed my mind again. Where's Bill Oddie wheny'need'im.....

Whatever it is it's absolutely ravenous [and a bit of a bully to boot].

I have uplifted a couple of photos of one of the thrushes, one taken a few days ago and another taken today after lots of snow.

Definately a Fieldfare [my bird book is rubbish ]. Quite excited about that as I don't think I've had one in the garden before. Have also noticed all the berries have gone [this has been a bumper year for pyracantha berries]. Think the birds are thriving on the food the farmer is putting out for the bantams.

Nice pics glass