Water Feature for Garden Wildlife

Our new garden water feature has worked a treat.

Not only does it look and sound good but part of the intention was to provide some water for garden wildlife. Whilst sat out in the sunshine late on Sunday afternoon we saw first a Willow Warbler take a bath in it followed by a Great Tit having a drink.

It’s great when these things work out just the way you wanted them to.

I had a great windsurf session yesterday when the wind picked up without warning.

I’d just been for a bike ride and when I got back the wind filled in beautifully so I headed across to the beach with my kit. It was windy enough for a 5m sail and my wave board so I headed out perfectly powered on smallish kit.

The wind was SSW so I was sailing out to sea and going a fair way out. Not only was I the only person on the water, but I was treated to some pretty extreme bird-watching too. Blasting along over the choppy waters I was surrounded at one point by loads of Manx Shearwaters flying just above the water all around me. Not only that but there were quite a few Gannets about too, some of them diving into the water just a few feet from me as I passed by. Quite impressive and a little more exciting than watching through a telescope from the shore!

I wish I’d taken my camera with me really as it would have been good to have stopped out there and got some photos of them. Although, if I had they probably wouldn’t have come so close.

Morgan and I have just finished doing our RSPB Make Your Nature Count survey. We spent an enjoyable hour sat there watching the garden and chatting about the birds that we saw. It’s easy to do as all you have to do is record the highest number of each species you see at any one time.

It wasn’t that busy out there but we were pleased to see a couple of Linnets. The results were:

• 2x Blaxkbird
• 1x Dunnock
• 2x Magpie
• 1x Starling
• 2x Blue Tit
• 18x House Sparrow
• 2x Linnet
• 2x Hooded Crow
• 1x Skylark
• 2x Swallow

If you haven’t done the Make your Nature Count Survey yet, then today is your last day to do it… It’s better than watching the TV!

The RSPB Make Your Nature Count Survey starts tomorrow. It is very similar to the Big Garden Birdwatch held earlier in the year. Basically you have to spend one hour counting and noting the birds that come into your garden. The only difference is it is held in June not January and they are also asking you about the mammals that come into your garden too.

The birds we see will of course be different at this time of year and rather than sitting indoors watching them or wrapped up with hats and gloves we can sit outside with shorts and ‘T’-shirt and a cold drink whilst watching them.

The survey period is from the 5th to 13th of June, so take an hour out to relax in the garden and record the birds that come to it – It’s actually really nice to just sit there and watch for a change and you’ll be doing your bit to help nature conservation at the same time.

The RSPB site has a handy recording sheet for you to use and some identification guides for any birds you don’t recognise.

It feels as though summer is here and as a new member of the RSPB I thought I’d make use of my membership and attend some of the ‘courses’ at Ynyshir, our local RSPB reserve.

Today’s course was ‘Bird Identification for Beginners’ run by Caroline. My bird ID isn’t bad but you can always learn something from such things so I went along. Also on the ‘course’ was Diane. Bascially we wandered around the reserve in the sunshine, with Caroline giving us some of her expert knowledge. She showed us not only on where to find certain birds but also helped with the ID of them.

It was actually really good. I was able to identify everything that we saw, but with Caroline helping us to look in the right places and without Morgan in tow I was able to see much more than I usually would.

We started off with some obvious birds on the feeders by the visitor centre:

• Chaffinches
• Greenfinches
• Blue Tits
• Great Tits
• Coal Tits
• Goldfinch
• Goldcrest

We then moved off into the woodland where we saw:

• Redstart
• Willow Warbler
• Long-tailed Tit
• Robin
• Wren
• Treecreeper
• Nuthatch
• Chiff Chaff
• Pied Flycatcher
• Blackbird
• Mistle Thrush

We then went down to the estuary hide where we could see:

• Canada Geese
• Little Egret
• Herring Gull
• Great Black-backed Gull
• Redshank
• Shelduck
• Moorhen
• Oyster Catcher
• Grey Heron

and on the way there a couple of

• Reed Bunting

Not a bad selection of birds in less than a couple of hours and some that I certainly wouldn’t have seen had I been on my own. I need to do that more often.

Morgan and I made use of our new RSPB membership and went for a cold winters walk at Ynyshir this morning.

Lots of Canada Geese about but Morgan was a little cold so we couldn’t sit and look for birds for too long. I did manage a couple of photos of a bird that I think is a juvenile Robin.

Juvenile Robin

Robin

Just a couple of photos of birds in the garden. There are a lot that I still need to photograph from the garden species list and I’m sure I can improve on some of these too, but here’s a female Chaffinch and a Blue Tit.

Chaffinch

Blue Tit

In my continuing attempt to photograph all of the species of birds in our garden, here are a couple of the often overlooked Starling and one of some Canada Geese flying overhead.

Starling

Starling

Canada Geese

Especially for Trudie. A photo of one of the Redwings we had in the garden today. Is this waht you’ve been seeing?

The Snipe returned as well but I didn’t get a decent shot of it. The Redwings weren’t easy either as they are very timid, wouldn’t come too close to the house and scurry around quite quickly. This was shot through the window as well so isn’t as sharp as it could be… Time to start thinking about a bird hide!

Redwing

Spotted a snipe in the garden this morning… Managed a blurry photo of it but I have the camera set up ready for its return. Bet it won’t come back now!

Snipe