First time sighting [British Bird]

We quite regularly get long-tailed tits in our garden and it’s lovely to watch them. They love the fat balls we put out. They always appear en masse and, when we see them, we always say ‘the gangs arrived’.

Sandye I have happy memories of crabbing with GS in Beadnell harbour in Northumberland, where Eider ducks and their ducklings would wait for the crab lines to be retrieved and then pinch the crabs as they were coming out of the water. It was like a takeaway restaurant for ducks😊!

I saw a song thrush last week. The first one I've seen in years. A bird that was common in my childhood. Such a shame.

I love watching and trying to recognize birds, not that I'm very good at it. Especially all the little brown birds, the different sparrows, chickadees, siskens and juncos on the northwest coast of BC.

I have seen my first American Robin of the season, so looking forward to spring, and in May when the swallows come back from the south.

We do have Kingfishers here, quite common. They have quite a distinctive call so recognizable.

I'm so lucky that we live one house row away from a nature reserve that leads to the sea so I see lots of the more uncommon birds as well as Eider ducks etc. The biggest gullery in Europe is on our island too.

I planted a Damson tree a few years ago and this year it has a lot of blossom on it.
I have noticed a number of goldfinches and bullfinches in the tree and discovered that one likes to make nests in these trees and the other loves to eat the blossoms. Such a treat to see these rare visitors to my garden.
I am sure there will still be fruit enough for delicious damson jam.

Sadly we don’t seem to have many birds in our garden these days, possibly because of ever present sparrow hawks circling. Last year and the one before we had robins nesting in our shed, we had to remember not to shut the door at night.

I did hear a cuckoo the other day, a rare sound these days. I was quite old before I knew that after laying an egg in another birds nest that chick would shove all the others out so the much smaller parents would feed just the cuckoo. Horrible lazy birds!

beachcomber76 long tail tits often appear in small swarms and not anything like the starlings. I have them visit bird feeders, usually quick visit then off! Don't know if you feed birds but Sunflower hearts are really good for attracting loads of different
types, more so than peanuts.Enjoy your visits from the birds.

We had goldcrests in our last garden, as there was a very large fir tree very close to the house and many birds seem to favour it including greenfinches and bullfinches. The tree was an ex Christmas tree planted out by the previous owners years before. It was forty feet high when we took it over and waved about perilously in high winds and its roots were growing up through the lawn, so we had it taken down. After that, the birds deserted us☹️!

A tiny goldcrest landed beside my patio doors.id never seen one before and had to look it up. Tiniest bird I've ever seen. So hoped he might return but not seen him again.
We have nuthatches and tree creepers and extremely noisy owls at night.

There are always lots of long-tailed tits in the hedge along the small wood behind my house. They come to the garden feeders in very cold weather but only ever eat the sunflower hearts!

I’m on the outskirts of the village, surrounded by farmland, with hedges and trees in my garden and next-door. Thirty years ago yellowhammers were regular visitors, now the wood is more established they stay up there, and the field in front of my house used to have hundreds of lapwings for weeks after harvest. Now the fields aren’t left fallow over winter and the birds on the fields are mainly pheasants and partridges venturing out of the wood now the shooting season has finished.

If you've ever wondered where swifts go at night I can tell you. We used to have flocks of swifts swooping and screeching around our garden on clear summer evenings. It was magical. They stay on the wing of course, and I noticed as it got dark they circled and went slowly UP and UP until they disappeared. This was about 40 years ago and I had no idea at the time where they went.

Chestnut

Last year a tiny goldcrest kept tapping on my window. It was lovely but not good because I think he was looking for a mate reflected in the glass because of the tree behind. We have removed the tree (much too large) and he never came back. Sad but a good thing really. I felt sorry for him banging on the window for no purpose.

Often pick up goldcrests on the Merlin app but have never actually seen one but they are absolutely minute.

I saw a budgie sitting on our fence. I walked over, put my finger out and he hopped on. Brought him indoors and caged him (can't remember what with). Put a message out over the local BBC radio and unbelievably the owners phoned in. I then returned him to his home! So sometimes budgies are found but it was only because he was tame enough to come to a stranger's finger.

I once saw a Kingfisher whilst walking alongside a river in East Devon, amazing.

It's wonderful to see swallows fly and swoop. I've only seen it once or twice though, beautiful.

Last year a baby blue tit crashed into my kitchen window. I went outside and held it gently thinking it was going to recover [hoping]. It died in my hand and I'm not ashamed to say I cried. He/she was beautiful. Now resting beneath an apple tree with a headstone. Love blue tits.

We see flocks of cockatiels occasionally and we once saw a blue budgie. Mostly we see wood pigeons, magpies and seagulls.

Last year a tiny goldcrest kept tapping on my window. It was lovely but not good because I think he was looking for a mate reflected in the glass because of the tree behind. We have removed the tree (much too large) and he never came back. Sad but a good thing really. I felt sorry for him banging on the window for no purpose.

dustyangel

Here in the Algarve I saw a Hoopoe a couple of days ago. Twenty odd years ago before we’d actually moved in I saw them frequently but not in recent years. I was really thrilled.

There have been a lot of goldfinches this year, they love the groundsel plants. Best excuse for not weeding I know!

I’d never seen a hoepee until 2 years ago. There were quite a few on the green in Meloneras in Gran Canaria. They didn’t seem bothered by all the people around.

Here in the Algarve I saw a Hoopoe a couple of days ago. Twenty odd years ago before we’d actually moved in I saw them frequently but not in recent years. I was really thrilled.

There have been a lot of goldfinches this year, they love the groundsel plants. Best excuse for not weeding I know!

We also have a number of types of owl including barn and little owl

We have all of the birds mentioned in previous post. Also when we first moved in here and were renovating our house one of the builders saw a Goshawk. Apparently they are about in our part of north west wales. Regarding kingfishers when we lived a few miked from Chester we used to occasionally see kingfishers on the canal

Out here in the country we don't see as many garden birds as my friend does in the town.
I put this down to the fact that here there is plenty of available food in the trees and hedges away from humans so they don't need my feeders.
I do see the usual sparrows and tits, blackbirds and thrushes and there is also a tree creeper who likes my nut tree and a small woodpecker in the orchard.
My friend's birds are bolder and tamer than my shy country birds, and use her bird bath more frequently.
Crows and jackdaws are terrorists!

I think long tailed tits are my favourite bird. They are so pretty and very sociable and come in flocks to feed and then all leave together.

I’ve had a couple of long tailed tits this year - we don’t usually get them. Compared to my last garden, which had a wide variety of species, this garden, which is surrounded by farm and woodland, doesn’t attract the numbers I would have expected. However the goldfinches will come as soon as the cornflowers start blooming. I managed to get some fabulous photos of a visiting sparrowhawk last year.
The rarest visitor we had in our last property was a waxwing. Never saw one before and haven’t since. He must have been lost!

I’ve got quite a variety of birds, including long tailed tits, blue tits and coal tits. Often a jay (just a pretty corvid) who plants acorns in my garden and a woodpecker who is so ungainly trying to walk upright. The sparrow hawk is a spectacular (not always welcome) visitor, looking for a ‘takeaway’ meal.
Not in my garden, of course, but I was so excited to see my first kingfisher out for a walk with DH’s dogs.