Garden Bird Lists – Page 2 – What Birds I Spotted Today

Finches, green and bull in the garden today.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen either, as someone that regularly changes out feeders with clean ones; I have a numerous stock of feeders people have given me over the years so I change the ones in the garden at each fill, I have hoped to get flocks of healthy greenfinches in my garden, but sadly there’s not a lot of them around any more and to see one is a highlight of this winter… erm I mean summer (don’t think it got above 12C here in Edinburgh today!) then to get 2 bullfinches as well it was pretty special.

Today’s birds:

Blackbird x 1 male
Bullfinch x 2, m and f
Dunnock x 1
Great Tit x 1 looked to be a chick
Greenfinch x 1
House Sparrow x 20+ including chicks very happy with that
Jackdaw x 4
Woodpigeon x 2

For those wondering about my dystonia I’ve been trying new medicines and looking at trying to relax more while thinking of work problems I find watching birds a great help as well as newts in the pond, fern leaves swaying in the wind and occasionally getting a loupe viewer out to view mosses, or just enjoy the carpets of moss that this cold summer has started to form, I never appreciated how much moss was a calming influence and great for people with brain issues like mine, it slows the twitching down.

Jay in an Edinburgh garden, swift and the sparrows are back.

Sorry it’s been so long things have gotten really bad with my dystonia and my hands have stopped working a lot, now managed to get tennis elbow from the shakes, it’s meant after work I can no longer garden, very frustrating as the weeds are getting a bit much. But hey-ho on the plus side I sit a lot more in the garden as still as someone with a tremor can, which means more birds come out of the hedges and trees.

Lately we’ve been getting bullfinches they’ve even been using the pond to wash themselves, great to witness, the sparrows are back some with young I gather they must be a different group that were nesting elsewhere as 100% sure all the nests were abandoned when my neighbour cut the hedge back.

Love to be gardening but am taking to the smaller and macro worlds of mosses, ferns and terrariums things that I hope not to need to use my arms as much and not need to turn heavy amounts of clay. Enough about that and onto the birds!

Bird list for 10th of July 2015:

Blackbird x 1 – must have young as it’s back and forth with a beak full of RSPB Coconut shell suet treats still not managed to find a vegan alternative yet.
Blue Tit x 2 – one looking a bit worse for wear after a heavy breeding season!
Bullfinch x 2
Coal Tit x 1
Common Buzzard x 1 over garden and 1 over Livingston
Dunnock x 1
Great Tit x 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker x
House Sparrow x 10+
Jackdaw x 3
Robin x 1
Swifts x 1
Woodpigeon x 1

Great Spotted Woodpecker – Springwatch

Today we had a great spotted woodpecker been a while since I’ve seen one. After my last operation my wife would set up a video camera watching the feeders so that I could see the birds whilst laid up in bed and she managed to get good footage of one. very impressed!

Don’t forget springwatch is back as is unsprung. You can see the live cams through here: BBC Springwatch very helpful for people laid up in bed!

First Swift of the year

Sorry the updates have been so patchy, I went to London for Chelsea but didn’t see much of anything as was too sore I didn’t get any photography or writing done.

I don’t know if I listed last years first swift, very odd! But today just one very low, great to see!

Other than that it’s pretty much all the same with extra starlings for good measure.

Garden Bird list August 31st, best for a while.

Had a good day in the garden today, it was sunny but very very windy here in Edinburgh and a lot worse tonight, just in from being out with the dog. Due to the wind it wasn’t a day for sitting in the garden, instead I stayed busy dead heading a buddleia in the hope it’d extend the flowering season and making an insect house out of some off cuts of wood and a lot of prunings from plants around the garden. With the strong winds insects must’ve been getting blown all over the place as the feeders were busy, also wondering if my winter birds are back as this was the first blackbird I’d seen in over 3 weeks!

Blackbird x 1
Blue Tit x 1
Carrion crow x 1
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 4
Great Tit x 1
Greenfinch x 1
Magpie x 2
Woodpigeon x 1

Garden bird list for Saturday 3rd of August

I was a little busy being stuck inside all day trying to get this page to work: -site now closed- it displays term deposit interest rates for Australian banks and building societies, no matter what I did I couldn’t get it to work with better styles of graphics, currently it’s in a very bare bones display but gives all the correct information. My garden bird list is therefore a bit limited:

Dunnock x 2
Greenfinch x 1
Jackdaw x 2
Woodpigeon x 2

All the sparrows gone.

Sadly my neighbour’s obsession with clean lines has meant all the sparrow nests, probably 10 to 15 were destroyed. Now the House Sparrows have left as have the dunnocks, the last 2 days in the garden have been so quiet. It’s like it’s night time in the garden due to the lack of chirping and bird song. Very frustrating. Need to move from the city! Want a hectare with many hedges and wildlife spots, but my generalised dystonia would not let me take care of that much land, can’t even take care of .15 of an acre.

In good news, loads of newt babies and the Rook has been showing up a bit.

Garden bird list and birds of Gardening Scotland

earlier today I posted a few pictures from the Isle of May trip http://www.wbist.com/archives/2899, but a friend on twitter @RoseCottageFife wrote a much more in depth and informative piece about here trip to the Isle of May here: http://rosecottageeastneuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-jewel-of-forth-nature-lover-day.html and there’s the Isle of May Blog from 15th of May announcing they do have puffins: http://isleofmaynnr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/yes-we-do-have-puffins.html – I would love to spend time out there as a scientist or conservationist, only problem is I have no degree in either!!! Silly me for pursuing computers and photography… Maybe they need a professional photographer!? Would love that, I’ll bring my own food!

My bird list today, there’s 2 lists as I went to Gardening Scotland and managed a few sightings there:

Garden list:

Blackbird x 1 – singing very very early! My wife has started putting earplugs next to the bed so that when they start at 3.30am she can dull the sound a bit.
Blue Tit x 2 – going into nest box
Carrion crow x 4
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 3
Jackdaw x 2
Magpie x 1
Woodpigeon x 2

At Gardening Scotland:

Moorhens
Oystercatcher
Rook
Starlings
Swallows – a few nests around the buildings there.

These are the photos to go with the Isle of May post from the 29th of May: http://www.wbist.com/archives/2804 hope they give you a bit of an idea to what the trip was like:

Tern on Post

Guillemots

Puffins Isle of May

Razor Bill

Razor Bill Isle of May

Tern in flight

Female Eider on nest

Rock Pipit

Guillemot grooming

Razorbills

Puffins with the Bass Rock in background

Below are comments that got lost when the website went down.

2 responses to Photos from Isle of May, 29th of May 2013. Scotland UK.

Wes Donze said on June 3, 2013

excellent photos – very good selection
- KiwiGav said on June 3, 2013
  
  Glad you liked them, I hope to get a few from last year up, I felt they were better, it was a brighter day and a lot more birds about, the storms and spills of whatever it was down south seem to have taken their toll on the birds up here.

New nest in the garden, already with young in it!

Not a bad day here in Edinburgh beautiful and sunny and decent list for the garden, found a new bird nest!

Blackbird x 2
Blue Tit x 1 – going into the nestbox, there’s still hope there’s something in there.
Carrion crow x 2 Flyovers
Coal Tit x 1
Collared Dove x 1
Dunnock x 5 – most I’ve seen at once, I also found a nest and a rejected egg, the egg was a bit away from the nest and sitting in a bush, I was surprsied to see something so bright blue amongst the green. Guess the poor little guy just didn’t survive, it did get very cold yesterday.
Great Tit x 1 – first I’ve seen in the garden for a bit.
Greenfinch x 1
House Sparrow x 1 – also first I’ve seen in a long time in the garden.
Magpie x 1
Starlings x 1 – flyover
Woodpigeon x 2

Below are comments that got lost when the website went down.

Wes Donze said on May 25, 2013

good selection – nice to see 5 Dunnock – shame about the egg – could be the parent rejected it
Hope the Blue tit nests in the box – ned to get new boxes up for next year myself

Back at home and my garden bird list

Today was busy doing the Aussie finance updates and sadly spending too much time removing spam from websites! I’ve added as many filters as I can find with no luck in reducing it. After the work was done I was out for it, my legs just couldn’t stand any more use so had to spend the rest of the day in bed, so very very frustrating! I’m used to happily walking 30 miles and then going out to a gig at night… Now I walk 2 miles and I have to stay off my feet the whole next day. My bird list suffered for time spent in bed and this is all I got to see:

Blackbird x 2 – on way to where the nest is
Dunnock x 2
Woodpigeon x 2

Not even sure if the blue tits are still nesting, I haven’t seen them or heard them about. I really hope nothing disturbed them while I was away, as I noticed a few entire half coconut feeders have gone missing from the garden, I’m hoping just blown off the trees and a fox has taken them whilst on the ground, but you never know, I’ve seen some decent sized crows at them.

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2 responses to Photos from Isle of May, 29th of May 2013. Scotland UK.

Cookies for birds? Are they made of peanuts?