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 itâs 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 Iâve 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 weâve 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 Iâve been trying to grow to encourage wildlife. Â The pond has been a great success for wildlife and draining parts of the garden, very happy after the dramas of making the pond. Â I also hope that the pond has helped prevent lower ground being flooded!
Greenfinches are also becoming a more common in my garden. Â 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. Â We are also attracting predatory birds, Iâve seen a sparrowhawk and a kestrel in the last week.
Finches, green and bull in the garden today.
Itâs been a while since Iâve 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 thereâs not a lot of them around any more and to see one is a highlight of this winter⊠erm I mean summer (donât think it got above 12C here in Edinburgh today!) then to get 2 bullfinches as well it was pretty special.
Todayâs 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 Iâve 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 itâs 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, itâs 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 weâve been getting bullfinches theyâve 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. Â Enough about that and onto the birds!
Bird list for 10th of July 2015:
- Blackbird x 1 â must have young as itâs 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 â 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 â Springwatch
Today we had a great spotted woodpecker been a while since Iâve seen one. Â 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. Â very impressed!
Donât 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 didnât see much of anything as was too sore I didnât get any photography or writing done.
I donât know if I listed last years first swift, very odd! Â But today just one very low, great to see!
Other than that itâs pretty much all the same with extra starlings for good measure.
All the sparrows gone.
Sadly my neighbourâs 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.  Itâs like itâs 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, canât 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 thereâs 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 â 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, Iâll bring my own food!
My bird list today, thereâs 2 lists as I went to Gardening Scotland and managed a few sightings there:
Garden list:
- Blackbird x 1 â 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 â 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 â a few nests around the buildings there.
These are the photos to go with the Isle of May post from the 29th of May:Â http://www.wbist.com/archives/2804Â hope they give you a bit of an idea to what the trip was like:
Below are comments that got lost when the website went down.Â
2 responses to Photos from Isle of May, 29th of May 2013. Scotland UK.
At a wedding, not a lot of birds for May 25th 2013
I was at a wedding today and didnât get to see a lot of birds.  The wedding was at Edinburgh Zoo and I did see a few birds from around the world, penguins, cassowary and a few other birds, but I donât add birds that are in captivity obviously.
- Blackbird
- Carrion Crow
- Magpie
- Swallow
If youâve never seen a Cassowary before there was a great BBC Natural World show, you can see the whole episode on youtube.
BBC Natural World â Cassowaries
New nest in the garden, already with young in it!
- Blackbird x 2
- Blue Tit x 1 â going into the nestbox, thereâs still hope thereâs something in there.
- Carrion crow x 2 Flyovers
- Coal Tit x 1
- Collared Dove x 1
- Dunnock x 5 â most Iâve 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 didnât survive, it did get very cold yesterday.
- Great Tit x 1 â first Iâve seen in the garden for a bit.
- Greenfinch x 1
- House Sparrow x 1 â also first Iâve seen in a long time in the garden.
- Magpie x 1
- Starlings x 1 â flyover
- Woodpigeon x 2
Below are comments that got lost when the website went down.Â
good selection â nice to see 5 Dunnock â shame about the egg â could be the parent rejected it
Hope the Blue tit nests in the box â ned to get new boxes up for next year myself
Wes Donze said on June 3, 2013
excellent photos â 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.