Song Thrush, Goldcrest and Great Spotted Woodpecker

Merry Christmas everyone! I had 3 great birds in my garden today on top of all the other fantastic birds that usually grace the garden. Christmas day has often been a great time for birds in my garden as all the roads are quiet around here and more birds venture into the garden. Over the last 4 Christmases in this house it’s been getting better and better. no Blackcaps, redwings or fieldfares this year, but the 3 listed are pretty good in my opinion!

Wren and Song Thrush

As I get ready to go in for another operation to end the year I’ve been trying to do a small amount of birdwatching when I can, I finally managed to add Wren and Song Thrush to my garden bird list this year.

The last few days we’ve had a wren around a fair bit and then today the Song Thrush showed up, very very happy with this bird being in the garden as it was drinking from the pond and moving around under plants that I’ve been trying to grow to encourage wildlife.  The pond has been a great success for wildlife and draining parts of the garden, very happy after the dramas of making the pond.  I also hope that the pond has helped prevent lower ground being flooded!

Greenfinches are also becoming a more common in my garden.  After 3 and a half years in this spot in Edinburgh from having a few woodpigeons and the very occasional blackbird we now have blue, coal and great tits every day, a roost of house sparrows which get up to 30 in the garden at one time and woodpeckers and greenfinches at least weekly.  We are also attracting predatory birds, I’ve seen a sparrowhawk and a kestrel in the last week.

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:

  1. Blackbird x 1 male
  2. Bullfinch x 2, m and f
  3. Dunnock x 1
  4. Great Tit x 1 looked to be a chick
  5. Greenfinch x 1
  6. House Sparrow x 20+ including chicks very happy with that
  7. Jackdaw x 4
  8. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Blue Tit x 2 – one looking a bit worse for wear after a heavy breeding season!
  3. Bullfinch x 2
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Common Buzzard x 1 over garden and 1 over Livingston
  6. Dunnock x 1
  7. Great Tit x 1
  8. Great Spotted Woodpecker x
  9. House Sparrow x 10+
  10. Jackdaw x 3
  11. Robin x 1
  12. Swifts x 1
  13. 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!

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Carrion crow x 1
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Dunnock x 4
  6. Great Tit x 1
  7. Greenfinch x 1
  8. Magpie x 2
  9. Woodpigeon x 1

Good garden list, and the skies above for 5th of August 2013

I had a great list for today, very impressed, I still got a lot of work on the websites done, including the UK finance updates and a put a few new calculators on the aussie site -now closed- , The Starlings are doing great displays at dusk with more than 30 birds in the sunset.  Here’s my list:

  1. Blackbird x 2
  2. Black-headed Gull x 1
  3. Blue Tit x 3
  4. Dunnock x 1
  5. Great Tit x 1
  6. Greenfinch x 2
  7. House Sparrow x 1
  8. Magpie x 1
  9. Robin x 1 – first in a while!
  10. Starlings x 30+
  11. Swifts x – a few about today
  12. Swallows x 8
  13. Woodpigeon x 2

Garden Bird list for 4th of August 2013, thought I wasn’t going to see a Dunnock

For a long time today I didn’t see a single Dunnock and I was surprised, then one turned up at the same time as house sparrow, also had a common buzzard high overhead, wish I could get better at telling my gulls from the ground!

  1. Blue Tit x 1
  2. Carrion crow x 5 fly over
  3. Common Buzzard x 1 once again getting mobbed by gulls, not sure on the sorts of gulls.
  4. Dunnock x 1
  5. Greenfinch x 2
  6. House Sparrow x 1
  7. Jackdaw x 1
  8. Magpie x 1
  9. Swifts x a fair few flying over, maybe 15 to 20.
  10. Swallows x 1 flying quite low to the ground
  11. Woodpigeon x 2

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:

  1. Dunnock x 2
  2. Greenfinch x 1
  3. Jackdaw x 2
  4. Woodpigeon x 2