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
I still haven’t quite got the hang on getting pin sharp photos with my longest lens. At 300mm it isn’t really long enough for bird photography either and hand holding it without image stabilisation isn’t easy, but I’ll get there. What I really need is a day out in the hills or along the estuary dedicated to photography so that I can get closer to the action. Having Morgan in tow really isn’t conducive to getting close to wildlife!
Red Kite
Red kite
Red Kites
If you look close enough you can see the reflection of me and Morgan in its eye!
Robin
Robin Red Breast
Friendly Robin
Blue Tits on a feeder
Although we live in a rural location surrounded by countryside, we don’t get a huge variety of birds to our feeders. It isn’t surprising really as the countryside around is is fairly sparse. There are few trees, and the ones that do grow are small and stunted and the number of different habitats that we do have are fairly specialised. There isn’t much in the way of cover for most birds so it is always nice when we see something a little unusual.
Yesterday we spotted a woodpecker in the garden. I only saw it in flight and then perched on a telegraph pole and it was silhouetted the whole time so I’m not sure which type it was, but it was definitely a woodpecker so that’s one we can add to our garden list.
It did prompt me to try writing a list of birds we have seen in the garden. So, in approximate order of ‘abundance’ here they are:
- Starling
- Sparrow
- Chaffinch
- Blue Tit
- Blackbird
- Robin
- Magpie
- Great Tit
- Jackdaw
- Collared Dove
- Dunnock
- Pied Wagtail
- Crow
- Song Thrush
- Swallow
- Gold Finch
- Wren
- Wood Pigeon
- Red Kite
- Linnet
- Redwing
- Chiffchaff
- Cuckoo
- Sparrowhawk
- Skylark
- Snipe
- Woodpecker
- Curlew
- Grey Heron
I am trying to feed the birds a little more this year and we have a nesting box and a few other wildlife friendly features in the garden. At the moment it has resulted in an increased number of birds to the garden, but the species count is still quite low.
My next project will be to get decent photos of them all.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of moth-trapping lately. Usually it just involves placing a moth trap in the garden overnight and then investigating the contents in the morning. The identification, counting and photographing of the moths can take a while sometimes, but generally its a fairly laid back affair.
Last night was a lovely night. Not too cold, fairly clear and barely a puff of wind so rather than just leave the moth-trap on its own, I sat out there next to it for a while and relaxed.
It was actually really nice. As dusk settled I listened to the fading bird song and saw that a blue-tit was using the nest box in the tree. Once darkness descended the sounds changed. There was still some sounds of wading birds and geese coming from the salt marshes around the estuary, the garden birds went quiet and the sounds of the waves on the beach became more prominent. All of this was puntuated by the occasional light thud of a moth hitting the trap.
I felt a bit silly sitting in the garden after dark but it was very peaceful, relaxing and highly recommended.
Although living in a rural location, there is little tree cover nearby and therefore the variety of birds we get in the garden is fairly limited.
Over the last few weeks we have had some new visitors though in the form of a pair of Linnets. These small finches are partial migrants to the UK and about the same size as a sparrow, but the males have a distinctive red head and breast. They certainly seem to be enjoying the forget-me-not seeds and I finally managed to take some photos of them the other day.
