On My Doorstep




Pheasant pecks up dropped grain

 

I picked up a plate for 75p in a charity shop.  A wooden plate through which Andy bashed a nail to attach it to the fence at the front of the house.  We added a few piles of grain and a couple of fat balls and waited for the blue tits to arrive.  That didn’t take long ... they were joined by the great tits; the long tailed tits; the house sparrows and the dunnocks.  Within a few days a family of pheasants found us but they had to fight off the marauding magpies while the collared doves hung around in the hedge waiting for their turn.  Our best visitor this week was a young sparrow hawk who flew in looking for his dinner!

Today brought us a brave blackbird.  It sat in a muddy puddle and refused to move when a car drove down the lane.  The driver slowed right down but the bird stood its ground.   The car went right over it and the bird continued to sit in the puddle!  A few minutes later it flew off and banged into a house wall  ....  obviously it wasn’t brave, it was blind!




Long-tailed Tit comes to eat the fat balls

 

My 75p was very well spent.  It will help to keep a few birds fed this winter, it is giving us excellent views of the wildlife and it has delighted one neighbour who is too ill to leave home but has taken up bird watching!




Great Spotted Woodpecker

 

                                                           

We have already recorded 17 different species visiting the garden on a regular basis.  I will be taking part in:

·         The RSPB Big Garden Bird-watch on 28^th to 29^th January 2012.  It only takes an hour to count a few garden visitors.

·         The BTO Garden Bird-watch which runs all year.

I’ll let you know how I get on.





Goldfinches eat sunflower hearts

  

        

                                                                         

                 Birds in our garden.
Photographs copyright of Andy Mason