Black-headed gull – Page 2 – What Birds I Spotted Today

Where have all my house sparrows gone?

Wow the snow really came down hard over night and most of today, I only had brief chances to look outside as I was doing DIY projects trying to get a room ready for when my parents come over from Australia on Sunday!!! Hopefully we’ll make it in time, and between DIY and watching birds I was doing the finance updates for ISAs, credit cards and saving accounts over on www.saverscene.co.uk (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession) – I try to find the best rates to help everyone, it’s tough time for savers!

I did a great list of birds even for the short time I managed to look outside, the blackbird count was fantastic, interesting to note that it was 4 male and 1 female. I’m pretty sure there was a Black-headed gull and it looked as if the summer plumage had really come in and looked fantastic:

Blackbird x 5
Black-headed Gull x 1
Blue Tit x 2
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 2
Greenfinch x 2
Long-tailed tit x 1
Magpie x 1
Woodpigeon x 2

It’s weird that pretty much after I put up a RSPB terraced nestbox for house sparrows and about that time they all disappeared! Not seen them for over 2 weeks.

Where have all my house sparrows gone?

Wow the snow really came down hard over night and most of today, I only had brief chances to look outside as I was doing DIY projects trying to get a room ready for when my parents come over from Australia on Sunday!!! Hopefully we’ll make it in time, and between DIY and watching birds I was doing the finance updates for ISAs, credit cards and saving accounts over on (UPDATE: saverscene now CLOSED due to moving to carer in horticulture hope to have my gardening website up early 2019) – I try to find the best rates to help everyone, it’s tough time for savers!

Blackbird x 5
Black-headed Gull x 1
Blue Tit x 2
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 2
Greenfinch x 2
Long-tailed tit x 1
Magpie x 1
Woodpigeon x 2

It’s weird that pretty much after I put up a RSPB terraced nestbox for house sparrows and about that time they all disappeared! Not seen them for over 2 weeks.

Garden Bird List for February 21st 2013

ust a quick one with my bird list today:

Blackbird x 2
Black-headed Gull x 3
Blue Tit x 2
Carrion crow x 1
Dunnock x 2
House Sparrow x 3
Magpie x 2
Woodpigeon x 1

A new first for the year – Greater Spotted Woodpecker

That’s right I saw a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, not in my garden but a tree opposite my house, so very pleased with that one! The rest of the list is from my garden today:

Blackbird x 1
Black-headed Gull x 1 – flyover.
Blue Tit x 1
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 1
Greater Spotted Woodpecker x 1
House Sparrow x 3
Robin x 1 – not in my garden on the street nearby.
Woodpigeon x 2

Robin in Corstorphine Tesco Bakery section, plus Oystercatchers on playing fields.

Another very quiet day in my garden, just 3 types of birds, I added a robin to yesterday’s list as I saw it just before midnight in Tescos Corstorphine hanging out in the bakery section of the store, photo, sorry poor quality from a camera phone:

Robin in Tesco bakery section, enjoying the croissants.

As well as my garden bird list:

Blackbird x 1
Blue Tit x 1
Dunnock x 2

I managed to take a walk down to Saint Margaret’s Park in Corstorphine and saw:

Carrion Crow x 3
Oystercatchers x 2
Black-headed Gulls x 5
Gulls – others, distance was too great to make out but looked to be lesser black-backed or herring. They were paddling in a pretty deep puddle, didn’t want to get closer as we had our dog with us.
Woodpigeons x 10

The SOC Laurie Campbell nature photography exhibition and snow!

Managed to get out to Aberlady to the SOC Waterston House to see the new Laurie Campbell nature photography exhibition – find out more as with all of Laurie’s work it was fantastic! The crowd was very small, by the time it was closing only 1 other person was there, however we didn’t get there until quite late due to work and slow going on the roads due to snow.

With the snow I thought there’d be a lot more birds in the garden, especially as I was outside filling the feeders at about midnight so I knew they’d be full for the morning, hardly anything’s been touched, here’s my list so far, hopefully update later in the day:

Blackbird x 4
Black-headed Gull x 2 – fly overs
Blue Tit x 2
Bullfinch x 3
Carrion crow x 1 – fly over
Coal Tit x 2
Dunnock x 3
Greenfinch x 1
House Sparrow x 9
Robin x 1
Woodpigeon x 3

BBC’s Winterwatch great footage of Long-tailed Tits, Garden bird list.

The snow is still lying on the ground but there seems to be very few birds around in my garden. I’ve just been watching BBC’s Winterwatch episode 2; if you’re a fan of Long-tailed Tits there’s a great piece about 9 or 10 minutes in: BBC iplayer Winterwatch I’ve only seen them roosting once before, but not nestling down, just a pure accident. Here’s my garden bird list so far, hope to update later in the day.

Blackbird x 2
Black-headed x 2, One of them didn’t have a tail, it seemed to be doing very well though!
Blue Tit x 3
Bullfinch x 3 – updated 11.13
Carrion crow x 2
Dunnock x 1
Herring Gull x 1
House Sparrows x 5 – updated 11.13
Magpie x 1
Woodpigeon x 3

Out for a gentle stroll to the park.

As many regular viewers of the site would know I’ve had 3 torn ankle tendons in the past 4 years and major screw ups from the NHS causing long lasting pain but I was a landscape photographer (can’t currently work at that) and really NEED to walk! It’s my hobby, my job, my passion! So when I feel I can do some I get out for gentle strolls with a walking stick, whilst at Saint Margaret’s Park I saw my first Pied Wagtail for the year, plus a few other birds:

Carrion Crow x 5
Pied Wagtail
Woodpigeon x 2

Wood Pigeons already mating and a new bird to the list.

I witnessed wood pigeons mating today, as well as very frisky dunnocks, also added another bird to the year list a Jackdaw, shocked it’s taken this long but first I’ve seen so far, here’s today’s garden bird list:

Blackbird x 3
Black-headed gull x 1
Blue Tit x 2
Carrion crow x 2
Chaffinch x 1
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 3
Herring Gull x 1
House Sparrow x 4
Jackdaw x 1
Magpie x 1
Woodpigeon x 2

Only one that’s missing for the year so far that I thought I would have seen by now in the garden is the wren.

The blackbird wasn’t singing last night, 5 species, 15 birds.

I won’t be able to do a lot of bird watching today, got a fair bit to update on the finance site: Saver Scene – ISA & Savings http://www.saverscene.co.uk/ [closed June 2018 as I move to a career in gardening after studying horticulture at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh] but what I did get to see from a quick glance were 5 different species and 15 birds, the blackbird has been a regular and has shown up the most days so far, followed by the coal tit, here’s today’s garden bird list, and a photo of the blackbird. I should say that since Christmas last night seemed to be the first night that the blackbird wasn’t singing until after midnight, it was also one of the cooler nights:

close-up photo of a blackbird, photographed by Gavin Hamilton

Blackbird x 5
Coal Tit x 4
Dunnock x 2
Greenfinch x 2
Woodpigeon x 2

update 11.12am just grabbing a glass of water and noticed a Blue Tit outside, so

Blue Tit x 1

A quick trip to the physio and 3 new birds species for the day.

Just had to go to the physio, loads more exercises to do almost 8 hours of work per day just on physio now! However on the way there I spotted 3 more species:

Black-headed gull x 3
Carrion Crow x 1
Magpie x 2

There were a few other gulls hovering high up, but I wasn’t sure what they were so haven’t added them to the list, here’s a Black-headed Gull in winter plumage that I photographed a while back, the sun was wonderfully low offering some great colours:

Black-headed Gull – winter plumage – photographed by Gavin Hamilton

Merry Christmas, had a bumper morning for birds at my place!

Merrry Christmas everyone! I hope you all get to see a few more birds than just turkey today! I think this is actually the most viewed for me in my WBIST counts so far, especially with the 23 magpies, although only 7 of them were in my garden the trees around my house were alive with their cackles, so great to see on Christmas, here’s today’s list:

Blackbird x 5
Black-headed gull x 1 – Fly over.
Bullfinch x 1 – Female
Chaffinch x 2
Coal Tit x 1
Dunnock x 1
Greenfinch x 3
House Sparrow x 7
Magpie x 23
Woodpigeon x 1

46 Birds in total, very nice for a suburban area!

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

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A quick trip to the physio and 3 new birds species for the day.

Cookies for birds? Are they made of peanuts?