On holiday this week and spending more time in the garden. I'm not a big bird watcher, but my wife spends a lot of time looking at the birds in the garden.
We were sitting on the patio watching the birds feeding, we have a fair few different ones already and we haven't even had the first frost yet:
- House sparrows - over a dozen of them
- Field sparrows
- Dunnock (hedge sparrow)
- Brambling
- Blue tits - 3 or 4
- Great tits - 2
- Jay - 2
- Blackbirds - a pair (male and female)
- Woodpecker
- Pigeons - 3 or 4
- Robin
- Swallows
- Green finch
- Sparrowhawk
- Nightingale
- Redtail
And that is just the ones in the garden. On the fields out the back and on the river there are the usual ducks and geese, but also peewits, kingfisher, herons and storks. At night, we can hear a tawny owl out the back, but I've never seen it. We also get a lot of bats down on the river.
When winter sets in, we will probably see a whole bunch more tuning up - hawfinch, goldfinch, serin, yellowhammer, skylark, starling, wren, garden warbler.
So, are any of you bird watchers, casual or professional? What sort of birds turn up in your garden and surrounding area?