RSPB bird watch - did you remember.

I want to clarify something right from the off - a narcoleptic does not make a good bird watcher!

I was really looking forward to this RSPB bird watch and while I was eager to do it yesterday the weather was atrocious so I decided today would be the day.
I chose to watch the bird table round by the polytunnel because there's usually more activity there due to all the surrounding hedges. The problem with this bird table though is that I cannot hang anything from it because the Rooks arrive in their droves if I do and scare all the small birds away so there's just the one bowl of food in an area that won't allow anything bigger than a Starling to get in.

On the menu today was bird seed, mealworms, pinhead oatmeal, crushed peanuts, mixed seed, mixed dried fruit and scraped suet block.

I gathered pen, paper, binoculars and camera and set myself up in the hen house which has a good view of the feeding station although because the feeding station is so tall - 7ftish - this was never really going to be a photo opportunity.

I had quite a few regulars show up such as a lone Robin. The Blue Tits and Great Tits were of the greatest number and you could tell them a mile off because they fly so funny.
I also saw 2 Blackbirds that were cleaning up the part of the feed station they could access - the edges, 1 Starling and 2 Blackbirds and a few house sparrows. Not really a fantastical number - I thought there would be much more and I was a tad dissappointed that the Wrens weren't showing up because I know there's plenty of them around - usually in the polytunnel. Just as I was coming to the end of the hour 1 Wren showed itself on a pile of wood below the feeding station and started feeding from the seed scattered below so that cheered me up a bit.

I made various notes during this 1 hour of sitting in the hen house in the freezing cold, in fact my page consists mainly of doodles and little snippets in barely legible hand writing as my fingers began to freeze and refuse to function.
"I'm cold" followed by "I'm bloody cold" topped off with "I'm frozen".
"Even the birds are too cold to eat" I wrote that while I sat there for at least 10 minutes of absolutely no bird in sight and not even a teeny tweet.
"Hens make some weird noises" - they all decided to stay around my feet and they made some really weird sounds as they sat there talking to one another.
"Stupid binoculars" - every time I tried to look through them they steamed up within 5 seconds.

I did enjoy the process, despite freezing my do dar off and I've decided I shall do it once every season at the same time each year to compare results.

I did get a show from this little lot though - Rooks, I hate them and they arrived by the hundreds thanks to the Rookery next door. The noise they make is awful .

Also a huge flock of these appeared - I'm assuming Blackbirds or Starlings or something? Certainly a lot smaller than the Rooks and way too agile for Rooks.

So in the field we had a flock of Rooks, a flock of whatever the smaller birds are a whole load of Graylag geese - at least 200. The geese arrive every year, stay for a couple of days and then head of to wherever they go next. Love seeing them, though they seem a tad earlier this year.

Had to have a little chuckle at the hens a couple of days ago. The pond had totally frozen over and I was trying to stop the dogs from walking on it when I noticed mama hen making her way over to me

All cocky as she was the only one brave enough (or stupid enough) to attempt it and then Huntly appeared and noticed her. Mama hens courage was short lived and she turned tail and ran while I had to make sure Huntly didn't attempt to take off after her on the frozen pond. TheShepherds had been on it but I wasn't risking Huntlys weight on it.

RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch

Thanks to Sue over at 'Our plot at Green Lane Allotments' I have remembered to sign up for this years 'RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch'.
I've been meaning to do this for a couple of years but I always seem to forget but having seen Sues post on the subject I've registered and have put a reminder on my Ipad and phone so that I don't forget.
If you're not sure what is involved it's very simple: All you need to do is spend one hour over the weekend 24-25 January counting the birds in your garden. Then you can either submit the results live online or through the post, whichever is more convenient for you.  Couldn't be simpler!
So head over to the RSPB website, register free of charge (you also get a £5 voucher to use in the RSPB shop IF you want to - no obligation) and they'll either send you the information pack or you can download it immediately and there's even activities for the kids to enjoy if you need it.
Now all I have to do is decide which feeding station I want to sit at, the one round near the polytunnel is likely to get more variety as the Rooks tend to raid the house one so I guess my query may already have been answered.

Happy bird watching!

Birds, flowers and Pergolas

Despite the wind today I got the pergola finished. I didn't get the trellis up as well though because I came across a problem that could see me damaging a pipe that I would really rather not damage, so I'm going to have to think it through first.
Here's the finished pergola though

I'm not sure what to do with the sides yet (if anything), I'll make a decision once the trellis is up.

Remember those Bamboo plants that my daughter saved for me from work, the ones that were in the skip? The ones that were about 15ft tall and we had to transport them home in a car? Well it seems that not even Homebase can kill Golden bamboo - a bit of repotting, feed, lots of water and some TLC and they're paying me back

I'm so pleased they survived even though they looked just about had it, I now have £120.00 worth of bamboo for free.

I've never grown Verbena but I picked up 3 plants on sale at a garden centre earlier in the year. The 3 plants are still in pots and growing well but a week ago I thought I'd snip the tops off, bung them in some compost and put them in the heated propagator.
I'm not the best cutting taker and 99% of what I cut usually dies but lookit

Only a week old and they're shooting up. Think I'm going to take some more!

Finally can anyone name this plant, I got it from my mums old garden and left it in a pot just to see what it does. I'd love to know what it is.

Oh, one more thing. After 3 years absence look what has come back to the new feeding station in my garden

Siskins - I think!

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Another bird ID please and Lamb killers!

This year I'm finding myself far more interested than ever before at spotting the different species of birds in our garden. I've always enjoyed the Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits etc and we've had the odd visit from Green finches (though not for a coupe of years now), Pied Wagtails, Tree creepers and warblers but it's been a few years since we've seen anything other than the Tits and Sparrows - or so I thought!
I have to admit that until now every brown bird has been classed as a Sparrow to me and anything bigger is a Blackbird or a Starling, however I've been taking a closer look at those birds lately and already know that Tree pipits are here (previously classed as a Sparrow to me).
Today I took this photo

Nothing fancy or spectacular - it's a Song Thrush (I think). What makes this bird so nice to see though is that this is what the RSPB says about it

"A familiar and popular garden songbird whose numbers are declining seriously, especially on farmland making it a Red List species. Smaller and browner than a mistle thrush with smaller spotting. Its habit of repeating song phrases distinguish it from singing blackbirds. It likes to eat snails which it breaks into by smashing them against a stone with a flick of the head."

Red list species, whoda thought it. Even if it turns out to be the Mistle Thrush (I can't tell the difference) it would be an Amber List species.
I'm currently in the middle of building a new feeding station for the garden to encourage more birds in but I'm concerned that history will repeat and I'll be fending off the Rooks and crows again so I put a tester of food out on the table yesterday and look what appeared immediately

There is a Rookery just at the bottom of the field and the darned things are a nuisance. Not only do they eat everything put out but they scare off the smaller species and they also kill the lambs born outside in the field next door (the farmer has indulged me with some awful stories). the owners of the Rookery do let shooters take pot shots at the birds but to me that is the wrong way round things. The shooters shoot into the nests but those nests are 50+ years old and probably like cement so it does nothing. They need to remove the actual nests!
One day I'll be brave enough to get a picture of the Rooks as they swarm just before roosting - it's an unbelievable sight and sound but ridiculously scary too (think 'The Birds').

It seems the Blue Tits have vacated the nest box due to the Sparrows and even the Sparrows have deserted it so that was a pointless fight for them all to get in.
I'd not seen the Blue Tits for a while  then today a pair of them flew into the garden landed near me, looked at me, waited a bit and then flew off again. I like to think they just popped in to say Hi.