Sparrowhawk drops by for breakfast

I opened the curtains this morning to find a sparrowhawk tucking into one of our garden birds on the corner of the compost heap frame.
By the time I saw it, the prey was pretty much unidentifiable but, from the colour of the feathers, I wondered whether it was a nuthatch.
I spent a good fifteen minutes watching the sparrowhawk tug and tear at its breakfast before it cleaned its beak on the wooden frame then flew away, leaving nothing but a pile of feathers.
Unsurprisingly, the nearby bird feeder is unusually quiet this rainy Sunday morning.

A tale of two feeders: the outcome

A while ago I wrote about my bird feeders.
I have spent a considerable amount of time and effort on this topic, partly to encourage the goldfinches into my garden and to discourage the pesky squirrels from destroying my peanut feeder.
Well, the good news is that I seem to have had some success. Not only have the goldfinches at last discovered the £1.99 nyjer seed feeder attached to the shed, I also have a steady stream of greenfinches visiting the garden.
Sadly, the squirrel completely wrecked the peanut feeder but I have already installed another, which seems to be working well so far. I was worried the woodpeckers would be discouraged too but I have just seen one feeding quite happily - despit having to perform some extra acrobatics to reach the peanuts.
I have also purchased the Gardman "guaranteed squirrel proof" peanut feeder but have yet to find a suitable place to install it - it only works if the squirrels are forced to approach from above. I hope to borrow a ladder and fit it to the eaves of the house some time this week to see if it will work.
In the meantime, the lovely wooden peanut feeder given to me at Christmas hangs forlorn on the shed as a testament to the squirrel which systematically ripped all the wire mesh to pieces, removed the stopper on the back, snapped the wire which held it to the shed and chewed all the wood.

A tale of two feeders

I bought a nyjer seed feeder for my birds this week.
My motivation? To encourage some of the goldfinches from the neighbouring woodland into my garden to join the party.
At £1.25 from Wilkos, I thought it was worth a try. One of my Twitter friends said theirs worked a treat and the goldfinches are regular visitors to their garden nowadays.
Having filled it full of the tiny black seeds, I nailed it to the shed.
It's safe to say it did initially generate a lot of interest from the great tits and blue tits - even the nuthatch came and had a look - but, with the exception of one or two blue tits, none of them managed to master the art of standing on the little green perches and feeding from the hole in the tube.
Meanwhile, the peanut feeder at the opposite end of the shed continues to be oversubscribed with a steady queue of woodpeckers, nuthatches, coal tits, great tits, blue tits and even a robin managing to cling on and feed.
Underneath, the chaffinches, dunnocks, blackbirds and occasional magpie, jackdaw and pheasant feed off the crumbs dropped on the ground.
Cut back to the other end of the shed...
Nothing.
I'll go back to the drawing board and see if I can find another feeder that would give the tweetlets easier access.
They look interested, but not interested enough to persevere.

Birds: a minute in my garden

Birds in my garden - 10 January 2011 from Roz Tappenden on Vimeo.

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Happy New Year

Well, with all the snow and festive celebrations, I haven't spent much time in my garden lately, although I have been watching the birds from the comfort of my living room.
My brother bought me a new bird feeder for Christmas and on New Year's Day I attached it to my shed.
I can report that within 24 hours, my garden had turned into bird chaos - I've had a male greater spotted woodpecker, two nuthatches and countless blue tits and great tits squabbling over the peanuts.
When I have a little time I intend to film them and post the video on here.
Ridiculous work commitments in recent months have meant I put off planting my narcissus bulbs for way too long and they had started to sprout on my window ledge.
On Sunday I whacked them in the ground and hoped for the best. The professional opinion of my gardening partner is that I probably won't be lucky enough, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will grow.
I've planted dwarf February gold (narcissus cyclamineus), dwarf baby moon (narcissus jongquilla) and dwarf hawera (narcissus triandrus). They are in a cluster on a protruding ridge in my lawn. I just hope I don't regret not putting them in sooner.