Tag: Carrion Crow

Another new bird for the year! More snow!

Woohoo finally saw a wren, I’d been missing them for my year list and I know they visit my garden, but today finally in the snow I spotted one.  All my tits seem to have disappeared though, really do wonder where they’ve gone off to, that said I was working on the Saver Scene Australian finance (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession) pages, although I’m KiwiGav I was brought up in Australia and that’s why I know more about Aussie deals, savings, bank accounts and credit cards than I do about NZ ones.  I’ve actually spent more time in the UK now than the country I was born in!  All 3 places have fantastic birds, you just have to pay a little more attention to the UK ones to see their beauty!

Here’s my garden bird list:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Bullfinch x 2, 1xm, 1xf they were eating the buds of new growth on the trees.
  3. Carrion crow x 4 – flyovers
  4. Dunnock x 1
  5. Magpie x 1
  6. Woodpigeon x 2
  7. Wren x 1

I should say I kept an eye out for the gold crest but sadly no show today, it was the weather I’d seen it in before, I’ll try and get my 1 and only photo I’ve ever managed to take of a goldcrest tomorrow.

New birds for the year and the cold takes it’s toll.

As I looked out the window this morning I saw that a poor wood pigeon hadn’t made it through the night, a real shame.  I’d put out a fair bit of fat and apple cores to try and help the birds through the cold snap.  Sadly the weather was just too much for this poor bird.  I hope it wasn’t one that was mating yesterday, be a real shame to loose a partner so early in the breeding season!

In other news added two new birds to my year list, mallards and goosanders that were on the water of Lieth when I was out of the house for a bit.

Garden:

  1. Blackbird x 2
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Carrion crow x 3 – flyovers
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Dunnock x 3
  6. Magpie x 1
  7. Woodpigeon x 1, and sadly one dead in the tree.

Water of Leith:

  1. Mallard x 5, 3 male, 2 female
  2. Goosander x 5, 4 male, 1 female.

The Goosanders were beautiful it was on slow dark water with sun hitting their white breasts and wow they were vibrant and reflected off the dark water!

It was of course Monday; there were many updates for the finance pages and don’t forget if you haven’t used your ISA limit for the year over on Saver Scene I’ve got the latest best interest rates.

Woodpigeons mobbing magpies & Long-tailed tit back!

The magpies are still building their nest in the monkey puzzle tree opposite, however I noticed that the woodpigeons are mobbing the magpies, anyone else seen this behaviour?

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Carrion crow x 2 – fly over
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Dunnock x 2
  6. Long-tailed tit x 1
  7. Magpie x 2
  8. Woodpigeon x 3 – I noticed one of these was mobbing the magpies as they were making their nest. Anyone know if this is normal? I’ve seen it in song birds before but not woodpigeons.

Sunny with a few snow flakes in Edinburgh today. Garden Bird List.

Had another busy day getting the finance pages updated for the Australian website, Aussies often have to pay for standard bank accounts but they can get a bank account for free (I did the whole time I was living there) if they just look around such as: best Australian bank accounts, no fees (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession).  The reason I mention this is because I was so busy doing that and the savings account updates I didn’t get a great bird list today, not even coal tits!  However here is the list from the garden and skies above during a pretty clear and sunny day in Edinburgh:

  1. Blackbird x 2
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Carrion crow x 20+ fly over
  4. Collared Dove x 2
  5. Dunnock x 3
  6. Magpie x 2 – my parents were surprised by the colours and striking look of magpies in the UK, and were also pleasantly surprised to hear they don’t swoop you during breeding season, I’ve had my ear lobe ripped open by an Aussie one – Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) Not a Corvid like European Magpies.  My hand has been hit pretty hard by a Tern here in the UK, but nothing like the Aussie magpies!
  7. Starlings x 15 fly over
  8. Woodpigeon x 3

More snow, magpies really getting their nests ready.

More snow in Edinburgh today, not as much as yesterday and didn’t seem to force the birds into the garden, the starlings are start to gather in a slightly bigger group of over 30 today, was great to see, also watched as Magpies broke twigs off the trees in the front garden to build their nest in the monkey puzzle tree (this link may take you to the archive.org website due to change of host) that I photographed a few weeks back.  It was a day of a fair bit of work, finally starting to get the finance section for Australia together the credit cards section done, which can be seen here: best credit card deals in Australia (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession), not a big list, but great to see the birds flying across the sky:

  1. Blackbird x 2, 1xm, 1xf
  2. Carrion crow x 50+ fly overs
  3. Coal Tit x 1
  4. Collared Dove x 1
  5. Magpie x 2 – they’re making their nest in the monkey puzzle tree
  6. Starlings x 30+
  7. Woodpigeon x 2 – my parents are shocked at the size of these pigeons in the UK

Another new species for the year, not in the garden though.

Monday’s are always busy as I do the finance updates on the best ISAs, Savings & Credit cards on www.saverscene.co.uk (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession) and everything in the Individual Savings Accounts have pretty much changed as we come to the end of the financial year.  But today I had a appointment for my carpal tunnel, then I got home to find that my mum just over from Australia had a freezing cold shower, she thought she’d done something wrong but it seems that the new boiler installed a week and a bit ago had stopped working
  My Dad an electrician decided to have a look and found one of our fuses (probably from the 1950s) had burnt out, but that wasn’t affecting the boiler.

Deciding to try and find the old style gear to fix it; we wandered into a industrial estate near The Gyle Edinburgh and saw my first Rook of the year!  We managed to find a few parts and then bodge some of the older ones together, he looked at the state of the rest of the fuse box and said it’d last another 50 years compared to the new ones in the electronic stores which he gave maybe 10.   So it’s almost all working and the boiler’s back up and going, after all this we get a letter  saying the plumbers want an extra £720 for the work took longer than they estimated, when I got the estimate I was told 5 days, it took 5 days
 So hmmm not happy!  Anyway I got a good look at a rook digging around in the ground, fantastic looking birds, I guess most people probably don’t feel that way about Rooks, but I like them.

Sorry to go on, just like to keep people up to date on how much time I have to watch birds, today was very little but I still got a decent list:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Bullfinch x 2, 1xm, 1xf
  4. Carrion crow x 1
  5. Coal Tit x 1
  6. Dunnock x 3
  7. Magpie x 1
  8. Rook x 1 – not in my garden, between The Gyle Edinburgh and Corstorphine.
  9. Starlings x 11
  10. Woodpigeon x 2

2 Common Buzzards glide over head mobbed by gulls.

another busy day with DIY as finally had the carpet laid and that’s pretty much the room ready for my parents, they’re in London now after the flight from Australia and are going to bus it up to Edinburgh, not sure why they’ve decided to bus it but guess 10 hours on a bus is not a big deal for aussie travellers and is generally the cheapest and we Aussies love our (UPDATE: saverscene now CLOSED due to moving to carer in horticulture hope to have my gardening website up early 2019) when travelling!

Now onto my garden birds, not a great amount of time being outside today, but it was fantastic to see 2 buzzards gliding high in the sky, they were getting absolutely mobbed by gulls though, some of the gulls looked as big so probably less black backed gulls, not sure if greaters really come in as far as my place in west Edinburgh.

  1. Blackbird x 3 – males were fighting and 1 female going about her own thing.
  2. Carrion crow x 1 fly over
  3. Coal Tit x 1
  4. Common Buzzard x 2 – getting mobbed by gulls, not sure which type though.
  5. Dunnock x 3 – very spring like behaviour from them today
  6. Long-tailed tit x 1
  7. Magpie x 2
  8. Woodpigeon x 1

So who’s going to win the Rugby this weekend?  Wales at home or the impressive English defence?

A very busy day again today.

been hectic with DIY as my parents are flying in from Australia and staying from Sunday, the room they’re staying in still doesn’t have carpet and walls need another coat of paint!  So sadly my bird watching has been limited to a few quick glimpses out the window and I came up with:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Carrion crow x 5 fly over
  3. Dunnock x 2
  4. Magpie x 7 – fly overs
  5. Woodpigeon x 4

Finally a Robin, but no blackbirds today!

Very strange not to see or hear even 1 blackbird, but there was a robin on the feeders today, that was a nice surprise!

  1. Blue Tit x 1
  2. Carrion crow x 1
  3. Dunnock x 4 – they were really into a spring fling today, as the weather was beautiful and sunny here in Edinburgh
  4. Long-tailed tit x 2
  5. Magpie x 3
  6. Robin x 1
  7. Starlings x 5
  8. Woodpigeon x 2

Added Collared Dove to my list today :D

Well done to England in the Rugby, probably the more exciting game of the weekend, got a bit worried about the scrums and ref at the start but things settled.  English defence is amazing!  Now onto the birds, I managed to add another first for the garden a collared dove, very happy to see one show up in the garden, although it’s the one bird my dog doesn’t seem to like due to the noise they make.

The day started with heavy snow showers, it was quickly burnt off by the sun, then returned intermittently throughout the day and as dusk rolled in was quite heavy again and is lying out there now. It was the first day the feeders were heavily used in a few weeks and were almost cleared out.  The Long Tailed Tits were back and was great to see 2 birds together inside a RSPB half coconut eating the fat, it seems to be their favourite as they dash to branches near by have a feed then back to the coconut.

Here’s my list for today:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 2
  3. Carrion crow x 4 fly over
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Collared Dove x 1
  6. Dunnock x 1
  7. Feral Pigeon x 1
  8. Long-tailed tit x 2
  9. Magpie x 2
  10. Woodpigeon x 1

I wonder where all my house sparrows have gone?  Not seen any since February 23rd