Bird watch in the garden

Posted this on the first day of spring thread.
We had a flock of red wings in the garden Drinking out of the pond and eating stale hot cross bun. Never seen them before and believe they may have been migrating south. Lovely to watch. They stayed quite a time

I’m sorry to bother, but could you spare some Apple please

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I'm getting really upset at the very frequent swoops by the damn sparrowhawk ...ripping up the little garden birds that I and my neighbours feed..makes me feel like stopping feeding them.
I KNOW it's nature but I just hate seeing it...

We don’t get anything in the garden but pigeons and LBJ’s, but a walk along the river this afternoon rewarded us with long tailed tits, great tits, a pair of buzzards and - a herald of cold weather usually - a couple of fieldfares! And the place is awash with hazel catkins; a sure sign of spring for me.

We did a count this morning, and strangely, after a few days of not many birds at all, today there were a lot.Loads!
Including greenfinches ( ignoring the new niger seeds and going for the sunflower seeds.)We hadn’t seen greenfinches for ages until today, it could have been the cold weather, but they were all hungry.Goldfinches ( also on sunflower seeds)
Long tailed tits in a small flock going for the fatballs, bluetits
And great tits and coal tits, blackbirds, a wren, a few robins
Wood pigeons rooks jackdaws, ( grrrr) a woodpecker ( a great spotted one) red kites.

Message from the RSBP

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Most of these seem to fly to my garden every morning on their way to the fields and raid it of everything!
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We started to do it with the dgc but they made so much noise when anything came into sight that we abandoned it and will do it today.

All I ever get are pigeons

We did ours yesterday,half hour each.
OH had great and blue tits,robins.blackbirds and wood pigeons.

I had nothing.
What has happened to the sparrows?

The usual flock of crows were wheeling in the sky, but they never ever land anywhere near my garden. Must have been about thirty of them. I hope others round here with taller trees are doing the birdwatch.

It's on tomorrow as well, so anyone who missed it can still do it.
I think the wind had a lot to do with fewer birds. I saw quite a few being blown over my rooftop, but very few managed to land, either yesterday or today.
The blackbirds had nesting material in their beaks, though, so that's okay for this year.

I did my count this morning , starting just after 9 o'clock. Like previous posters, I saw far less birds than usual :- 1 dunnock, 1 great tit, 2 blue tits, 1 wood pigeon, 1 robin, 1 crow, 1 male blackbird and 2 chaffinches. Even the usual great flock of feral pigeons didn't come for their breakfast.

Aargh, I forgot all about the Big Garden Bird Watch, and I do it every year. DH bought some new bird food, and they don't like it. The feeders are still almost full. Apparently our little birds will not eat the wheat that is mixed in with the seeds. I think we've fed them too well, now they're fussy. We will have to buy some more seed for the feeders.

Will do that Cherrytree?

Blackbirds used to nest in the honeysuckle on my shed roof but I've just had it re roofed and the honeysuckle/ivy had to go. Mr and Mrs Blackbird were sat on the fence the other day looking at it; I'm sure she was saying 'but darling, what has happened to our home?'....feel awful ...stopped off to see the starling murmuration [or 'the dancing birds' as DGD calls them] at Attenborough this afternoon, but I think the birds are starting to disperse. The week before last we had a field full of curlews at the end of the garden oop north. I used to get excited seeing just one curlew, so to see them grazing like that bowls me over.

We had zero!

We delayed our count until 3pm because although we usually do it in the morning there was hardly anything about.

Got a good tally of great tits, blue tits and goldfinches, two robins, woodpigeons, chaffinches, three dratted magpies, dunnocks and one blackbird.

Glad we waited.

Its RSPB bird count this weekend.
Did our hour this morning
Very frustrating not our usual count of birds on the feeders.
I think the weather had a lot to with it.
Warmish and damp.
Cold and frosty would probably have brought in quite a few hungry birds.

We didn't do our count until 10am,
So the were birds were probably already quite full!
The early-bird neighbours taking part in the count would have already provided a substantial bird breckie.

Which might be why you all haven't had as many of our feathered friends as normal in your gardens.

Fairview you can send your tally to the RSPB online.?

We had a red kite circling overhead this afternoon, so most birds have scarpered. I think the birdies know they were to be counted this weekend, we have had far less than normal despite our full birdtable!

I was going to start earlier but I kept an eye while I was reading the paper and didn't see one bird on our feeders it's very odd as I usually see lots. It's starting to get dark now dammit.