General Chat

nudge.
Hilary.

Thanks girls, That is sad, even from my distance. Nature is wonderful. but..... Happy days

Further to my previous posting on page 2 of this thread A sad sight today. The duck's nest has been raided. All eggs have gone and today I've not seen Mother Duck, who had been sitting since last weekend........ but there are a number of white feathers out on the grass. I just hope she got away from the fox or whatever was here. Gwyn :(

Just hads our resident sea gulls chasing off a buzzard!

You are welcome to keep the notes coming. Gwynneth,s addition is perhaps the only one i have ever had before 9am in a morning - such is my age group. G is up before the birds. Happy days

No cuckoo heard in this south-east corner yet this year. Collared doves regularly toss twigs around in the garden lately. What makes one twig more acceptable than another? Wild duck is out there laying in our old greenhouse as I write..... think this is egg number 13 so she will start sitting soon. I find it amazing that the 1st eggs just wait 'in limbo' before starting to develop and then they all hatch on the same day....... something I hadn't really thought about until the same duck first visited us 2 years ago. She returned last year but sadly a fox stole the eggs halfway through the sitting/hatching period. Hoping for ducklings in about a months time.

Harry no Cuckoos round here but robin seems to be shy at the moment not seen him for a couple of weeks the blackbirds are Ok quite a few about. We don't get a lot of birds. Lancashire coast. Germaine x

thanks for that Karen - interesting Sally, thanks for the below. must be a nice sized garden. Happy days

Hi Gray I put the same question to my Dad the other day as I was surprised to see two robins sitting next to each other. My Dad told me that Robins are only territorial in the breeding season, so I guess in a few weeks time they will be fighting over 'their patch' :-) Karen

Many thanks for the varied replies. Sounds like just no-one has heard a cuckoo yet, in this country. which is late. Robins are supposed to be territorial, but there have beenseveral; reports of late concerning little groups of them. Happy days

I have five in my garden, all seem to be together at the same time.i have two acres, I thought they would have their own patch.

We have plenty of starlings, also blackbirds, rarely see the thrushes or house sparrows and the hedge sparrows also rarely seen. Lots of noisy mynahs. Aussie hawks. Our own Tui, fantail, Riroriro (grey warbler), shining cuckoo (heard in spring, lays eggs in Riros nest, lazy b....d), other imports eg pheasant, Californian quail, various finches. Probably forgotten a lot of birds. We have an acre of land in the country, lots of trees on it and native bush nearby. I forgot to mention the bellbird which sometimes visits. And of course the most important bird, ME (Huia, a now extinct bird, not me but the original). Some of those birds will make a change for you.

We've had a goldcrest in the garden for the last few days, haven't seen them around here before. Oh, and we have a thrush and we don't see those very often. Heather

I have a mgnolia tree just outsdie the kitchen window, my friendly chaffinch was there agian today, pecking at the fat balls. the blue tits are eyeing up the nest box, so maybe they have taken up residence again. I never cease to be amazed at the speed at which they enter through the little hole and dont misfire and brain themselves!

Swap someone a cuckoo (never heard one live), for all these r*ddy noisy magpies, crows and blackbirds around me......... get a few cute little Robins though and some lovely blue with yellow chests birds, not sure what they are.......maybe blue tits... oops.......don't mean to be rude lol. Lin

I live near woodland and a few weekends ago I had a woodpecker visit my bird table, he was pecking away like mad at my coconut shell that was full of the mixture from fat balls. I havent seen him for the last few weeks but I have loads of starlings, sparrows, a couple of robins, blue tits, collared doves and black birds that visit my garden. I have a female black bird that is a regular visitor to my garden and shes getting quite tame now :-) This year I've got myself a nesting box which I'm hoping some blue tits will use, I've already had a few blue tits inspecting it but none as yet have set up home in it. In my local town centre theres a large wagtail roost which homes about 200+ wagtails, its an amazing sight to see :-) Karen

Not yet :-)

Hi harry, when we first moved to our village, there were hardly any trees, so obviously no birds as such, so we put the conifers in, had loads of birds nesting in them, thought it was great, then due to subsidence had to have trees taken down, so the birds all went. still hardly any trees in our village so not a lot of birds about. do have a nest box on my wall, we used to have finches stay in them, they used to come back every year, but not for the last couple of years. it was lovely watching the adults trying the get the young to fly, used to push them off the perch we put up for them. saw a couple of wagtails the other week, saw a bird the other month looked like a robin but the red was more deeper and over a wider area. havnt a clue what it was. jean

Lovely to hear of the different birds in your gardens. I live in the north west - at least we don,t hear the birds coughing these days, although we don,t get any ornate ones, unless the blue-tits qualify. just wonder if all these people who have their Leylandii cut down, have affected the bird population - birds, insects and what have you. Thanks jean, for the lovely message below. Happy days

Not heard a cuckoo yet, Harry, but I've heard the woodpeckers 'laughing' and saw a blue heron flying over the gardens yesterday - obviously looking for fish in garden ponds. CB >|<