Long Tailed Tits

for some reason they decided to come right down into the garden today, really close to the windows.. so heres a few shots of them.

Was lovely to see our Long Tailed Tit family back again, there were all 9 again, but half stayed up in the tops of the tree.

Been a great morning this morning for watching.

Goldcrest

Just watched a Goldcrest feeding in the fir tree just beyond my garden! What a delightful little bird! First one Ive ever seen.. he didnt come onto the feeders though.. do they even come to feeders?? I have no idea.

Isnt it amazing whats under our noses.. we only have to open our eyes (with the help of some binoculars!) to see them.

What an rewarding hobby this is turning out to be.

coal tits

Had a lovely cup of tea time this morning watching 2 great tits and 2 coal tits flitting to the sunflower seed feeder. Its very cute the way they take one seed, then fly upto a perch to deal with it. I think the cutest thing is when they wipe their beaks on the branch before flying down for another.

I was quite surprised to see the coal tits taking Nyger seed from the thistle feeder! They seem to love it, I guess their beaks are small enough to be able to pick them out of the tiny holes.

When we move I shall miss this set of birds, they dont come constantly through the day, but when they do come theyre a real joy.

The Goldies return

After saying I only had 1, then I had 2, I then had 3!!

I tried to get closer but they spotted me behind a bush!















Then the silly blackbird had a balancing act again

Crafty Blackbird

I seem to have a blackbird thats not heard that he cant feed from a fatball feeder!! after a few days of trying, and falling off alot, he finally cracked it.

Here he is using an extremely small twig as a perch while he tries to feed bouncing up and down on it! Sharing his breakfast with a LTT on the nut feeder.

He can just about hang onto the feeder itself, but doesnt have much time before Mr. Newton takes over!

I finally got a shot of a lovely Coaltit (i think). He doesnt come often but its always nice to see him.








Today I also spotted what I think was a female chaffinch. But I didnt get the camera out in time to try to get a still shot for ID purposes. Not the first time Ive seen her, so hopefully she'll return.

Managed to get this half decent shot of my regular Goldie too, he/she visits very often through the day now, still only seen one at a time since I put the huge feeder up!! typical huh.. Still, you cant be disappointed with such a beautiful visitor can you?






Edit:
Having just said that...

amazing morning

You know its going to be a good day when you roll up the lounge blind and see:

9 long tailed tits
3 great tits
1 blue tit
1 goldfinch

all on your feeders at the same time!! Unfortunately, it was still quite low light so the camera wouldnt cope, at least not without a tripod (which I didnt have time to setup!).

Nice to see the LTTs back again after a weeks absence. I was beginning to think theyd moved on as I hear they do in the end. The Great Tits were loving the nut feeder, the sunflower seeds and the fatballs... and squabbling over them as usual. I wonder if theyre territorial like Robins?

The Goldfinch seems to be visiting lots during the day, quite often I look out the window and see him on the same port on the thistle feeder.. he must be loving it all to himself at the moment as his 5 friends still havnt retured. It would be lovely to see them all back again.

The buds on the Cherry tree are swelling quite significantly already.. it looks likely that we wont be here to see it flower this year as were house hunting. This place just isnt big enough for us and we need some garage parking (for the bike!). Wherever we go we'll make sure we have a bird friendly garden though... thats for sure.

Nice to see the sun

It sure was nice to see the sun today, and it wasnt so cold either, sitting about 7C for most of the day. A good day for cleaning the car and the bike.

The seemingly regular Goldfinch visited again this morning, together with a multitude of Great Tits on the sunflower seeds. The Goldie stayed for ages and ages it seemed... they appear to be a very chilled out bird, even staying put when someone walked up the path, not 3 meters from him as he was feeding.

On the way back to the house after cleaning up the bike I stopped under the cherry tree to look at what I think might have been a female Siskin.. Im still not sure, I need her/him to visit again so I can have a good look with the binoculars.. she was way above my head and I couldnt really see.

Goldies laser guided Nyger Feeder Eyesight

Well, theres no doubting the effectiveness of the Yellow top/bottom idea on your Nyger Seed feeder... after literally 2 mins of putting the feeder in the cherry tree, we have our first visitor.

This isnt the first time Goldfinches have visited the garden, before I just had a standard seed feeder with Nyger seed in it (oddly it didnt all fall out) and once had 6 goldies fighting over it (hense the purchase).

Quite astonishing.

rain rain rain rain

with all the rain I never expected to see any feathered friends yesterday, with the wind and rain! But low and behold, half way through the afternoon 2 Long Tailed Tits came to visit, clever little buggers were perching on the leighward side of the nut feeder under its metal dome!!

Sometimes I think they have more sense than we do.

long tailed tits this morning

This is just a first shot of the LTT family that visit my nut feeder. This is only 2 of the 9! There were a couple out of shot when I took this.

I need to get closer as my camera is severely lacking. Theyre getting very tame now, so Ill have another go when theyre stuffing their faces!!

Not much has been happening in the garden today. I think with the ground being nice and soft now all the small birds are harvesting the many worms and bugs that are escaping their frozen prisons now they can!

my feeders

Heres a (not very good) shot of my feeder arrangement. I found that if I bunched them up together, the birds seemed much more comfortable.

You can just see some long tailed tits on the nut feeder.

the good old first post

after chatting to the lovely people on Garden Bird Supplies forum, I thought that Id start yet another blog!

Ive actually not used a blog for a good while, and I kinda miss it.

Who am I? well, Im a 30 something geek from the middle of Dorset, I'm slightly unusual in that I love all things natural, but also Im a complete nerd when it comes to technology.. to the extent that I teach at Bournemouth and Poole College. I mainly teach web design and networking, but I generally get thrown in on almost anything due to my industry experience. To make the story more complicated, Im also a student at the same College, studying the same course that I teach! yes.. I know.. its complicated! Basically they 'spotted' me early on and have decided not to let me go, so wanted to get me teaching asap.


Anyway... the theme of this blog isn't really me, its my garden!

I have a fairly small garden, situated right in the middle of a market town high street in mid Dorset. This is a summer shot of it.

As you can see, its not much.. its been a labour of love over the last 3 years. When I moved in it was an overgrown mess neglected by all the previous tenants.

The main feature is the Cherry tree at the top of the garden that becomes a blackbird fruit heaven in early summer. This is where my feeders are located as its a little way from the house, but in a position that I can see from the sofa!