garden birds

I love watching the birds on our birdfeeder even though we only get sparrows, blackbirds and a robin or two. However a neighbours cat has taken to stalking them and I found it with a wood pidgeon in its mouth the other day in our garden - it looks as though I will have to stop feeding them so watch out for the cats.

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/identify-a-bird/
Hope that helps, apparently if the more birds there are the better as they can warn each other about cats.

I feed the birds on my very tall feeding station which my cats ignore. At this time of year they eat me out of house and home so I ration the fat balls and filled coconut halves to one a day. I also use robin mix seed to which I add some dried bugs, Flutter Butter, peanuts and an Asda suet candle. I am visited by large and small birds, many of which are young.
Could the birds you describe be a variety of tit? There is a good app called Birds of Britain which gives photos, description and a recording of their call.

Sounds a bit like a pied wagtail to me, Fennel

You need to place bird feeders out in the open where the cats can’t hide and pounce from hiding. I don’t fill my feeder in the Summer only in the colder months as I read somewhere they have adequate during those months. I love sitting in the kitchen watching them it’s quite fascinating.

Yes I'm aware of the danger of cats. I've only ever seen 2 cats around the Close , but that's enough I suppose.
The feeder is quite high up, hopefully high enough.
I thought the birds could be tits shysal. I'll look it up.

ps I think they could be coal tits. They're very dainty and fast-moving.
Wish I had our binoculars - we lost them in the big move.

Recently we had 7 jackdaws on our bird feeder! One was a youngster though s/he looked as big as his/her parent who was busy feeding him/her. It was wonderful to watch.

Not so wonderful is the fact I bought a new feeder for bird seed and within a couple of days the perches had disappeared and the feeding holes enlarged. The reason? Our squirrel family. If I'd not seen them at it, I wouldn't have believed it. And it was just the plastic one either. Somehow they managed to force the wire aside on the metal peanut feeder as well!!! What little hooligans

I put seeds, nuts, etc., on the bird table and on the ground, but the wood pigeons scoff most of it. I bought 2 feeders, filled them and hung them up - in 3 weeks, not a single bird has been to them, so I've gone back to putting food out on the table and ground again

Our house is built upside down - sitting room upstairs to get the view. The sitting room (or whatever you like to call it!) also has a balcony, so we feed the birds there and keep them safe from the cats. Unfortunately they aren't safe from the sparrowhawk....

How I envy all of you with gardens. I am in a second floor flat but fortunately in a fairly "green" part of the city. I have a bird feeder that sticks onto my window and is (was) visited by lots of tits, goldcrests and sparrows.

Unfortunately the dratted pigeons have discovered it. I can't find a way of keeping them off it - they can just balance on the edge and scoff the lot in 5 seconds.

We have a lot of finches here who have replaced the sparrows that used to be in abundance.
They're pretty little birds with their little tweets.
A couple of winters ago I saw a beautiful redwing on a berry tree.
Of course we have the seagulls being near the sea and when they land in the garden they're quite big.

Before a pine tree was chopped down in the road behind me I used to watch a sparrowhawk hovering around the tree looking for nests but don't see many of them now.
The odd heron flies by now and again.

We have a large variety of birds at ours feeders. Blue tits and great tits, chaffinches, sparrows, dunnocks, robins, blackbirds, jackdaws, and my husband buys sunflower seed hearts which the goldfinches love. I suppose we are lucky in that we live in the edge of a small town and have farm land at the bottom of the hill.

Oh, and I saw a black cap eating thistle seeds in the wall which separates our house from next door. I've never seen one around here before.

We have a lot of sparrows and blackbirds visiting our garden and the birdsong in the morning is lovely to listen to.

We also have magpies nesting in the tall trees, which are quite chattery and the ubiquitous wood pigeons. I also spotted a robin last winter.

While the sparrows can easily negotiate our bird bath/feeder, the magpies are just too big to get into the feeding space - they balance on the edge of the bath part and wait for bits of food to fall into the water, which they then fish out.

It's better then the telly!

Our bird feeding station is hung along the side of the shed with debris falling to the ground. We regularly see house sparrows, dunlings, robins, blackbirds, blue tits, coal tits, magpies and pigeons. Occasionally the garden falls silent and deserted as the sparrowhawk circles the neighbourhood.

Wonderful to watch.

Dunnocks, not dunlings..

"It's better then the telly!"
It sure is, Liv
You can learn more about human nature from bird behaviour.

I love hearing the dawn chorus even when I really needed a lie in! The birds are still in and out of the nesting boxes and I can’t wait for winter when our big fat robin comes to visit- DH tells me it’s not the same one every year but of course I know different......

I used to feed the birds in my garden, and loved watching the blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins, etc, but had to stop because of rats. They would sit under the bird feeders and feed off the ground. I now just leave water for the birds and still get a fair number but not as many as before

It's great watching them and if you're not sure what they are look on the RSPB bird identifier page.
Please be aware that that feeding during the summer makes them rather reliant on you. They need the extra food during the cold weather, there's plenty for them at present. So unless you're prepared to feed during the cold weather, don't do it now.

I suggest buying a bird identification book and then keeping a record of the birds that come to the feeder. This is what I did when I first moved to my current house and saw loads of birds I had never seen in my life before. It was really very exciting. If you still can't identify something which occasionally happens then try to take a photo and post it on a bird id website such as RSPB. We are plagued by squirrels so I had to get a squirrel proof feeder. It was quite fun at first watching the ingenuity and antics of the squirrels but no good for the birds. young squirrels still try but then give up.
I don't think it's a wagtail as they rarely use feeders and their tails bob up and down. It could be a sparrow or a dunnock. See if you can see the shape of its beak as to whether its a grain eater or insect eater - go and get that book and enjoy!

I only feed the birds through winter and during the main Spring nesting sEason. Then I gradually reduce it through the summer and just provide water. I believe the birds should forage for themselves when food is plentiful otherwise they become too dependant on us. I have many birds visit my garden all year.

I love watching the birds on my feeder. A few pigeons clean up any dropped seed, which helps to stop them growing in my lawn. Luckily I rarely see any cats about. I only buy fat balls, sunflower seeds and mealworms in the winter.
I treat my favourite blackbird to cheap pears and apples from Aldi. It’s amazing that he can eat a whole one in a matter of hours. If I forget to put one out he comes to the patio window and glares at me!