Tag: 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

Snow, Snow and more Snow, the Goldcrest was back.

First time I’ve seen the goldcrest since the last big hit of snow on January 13th: Goldcrest Tag it was once again in the front garden, I’ve been watching that more as my parents are now staying in the room that gave me the view out into the back garden, sadly means less sightings generally.  Here’s the front garden list for today:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Goldcrest x 1
  4. Starlings x 30+ – the were doing a very nice, but small murmuration for about half an hour, was so great to see!
  5. Woodpigeon x 20+ – a big flyover of these birds today, not sure where they were all off to, but their big bulky silhouettes were nice to see across a snow falling sky.

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

A new species for the garden today! Rain, Rain, some sun, Rain!

Finally my current profile picture matches the day with my pint of Guiness and St Patrick’s Day hat, Happy St Patrick’s day!

A new bird has shown up in the garden today, 2 siskin 1 male and 1 female, very pleased with that!  Also 4 bullfinches and the males were looking superb!  Even with the rain they shone brightly in what light there was this morning.

The DIY is almost complete, a bit late as my parents arrived today, great to see them over from Australia been about 18 months since I last saw them and 5 years since they last saw my wife.   Now onto the birds:

  1. Blackbird x 1
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Bullfinch x 4, 2 x m, 2 x f
  4. Coal Tit x 1
  5. Dunnock x 3
  6. Great Tit x 1
  7. Robin x 1
  8. Siskin x 2 – 1 x m, 1 x f
  9. Woodpigeon x 1

I don’t know if this will be of interest to anyone but a user on the Australian Saver Scene has put out a challenge: (UPDATE: saverscene now CLOSED due to moving to carer in horticulture hope to have my gardening website up early 2019) there’s already a few good money saving ideas, so if you have one feel free to add it over there, I always feel money saved means more bird seed and when I can walk better more money for petrol to go birding and camera gear photographing (I’m hooked on wildlife!  But hope to be back doing landscapes soon), so try hard to do a lot of the saving ideas.

What a day of rugby! Snow here in Edinburgh and birds sheltering.

Wow 3 great matches today, there were some great plays!  The birds were all in hiding today, there were seven woodpigeons sitting high in the trees looking very very wet, here’s the bird list for 16th of March 2013:

  1. Blackbird x 2
  2. Blue Tit x 1
  3. Coal Tit x 1
  4. Dunnock x 3
  5. Robin x 1
  6. Woodpigeon x 7

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

2 Bullfinches showed for a bit, plus the usual garden birds.

Interestingly no Long-tailed tits, that I saw today, but I did get the 3 others that visit the garden.  Once again it was a busy day of DIY and trying to get a fair bit done on other websites in particular www.saverscene.com.au (now closed as I move into gardening as a profession) that ones about bargains and finance in Australia, very similar to the UK one, a few friends asked me to set it up as it’s often hard to find info on finance, deals & bargains on websites in Oz.   Just new so taking up a fair bit of time finding resources, meaning little time for bird watching again.

I did get outside a few times to take Chewie (my dog) out and a trip to B&Q, I noticed that the crocuses are now pushing through the snow and flowering which was great to see!  There’s also 1 daffodil ready to come show, it’s sitting all bright and yellow amongst the snow.

Here’s my garden bird list for today, great to see Bullfinches back:

  1. Blackbird x 4, 3xM 1xF
  2. Black-headed Gull x 1
  3. Blue Tit x 1
  4. Bullfinch x 2 – male and female
  5. Coal Tit x 1
  6. Dunnock x 2
  7. Great Tit x 1
  8. Magpie x 1
  9. Woodpigeon x 4