EARLY NIGHTS MEAN LESS WILDLIFE VIEWING TIME

I’d like to say there’s a lot going on in and around the garden, but as I’m away for most of the daylight hours it’s very difficult.

The weather has generally been typically autumnal, albeit generally quite mild.

On my morning walks to work I have once or twice noticed a flock of redwing and potentially some fieldfare, so I’m going to try and start out early one day (subject to getting the girls ready for school early).

The feeders have been fairly quiet recently, with only passing visits from the local blue tits, great tits, house sparrows and dunnocks.

There’s have been very few visits from blackbirds and no sightings of the long tailed tits.

The pond has been overwhelmed with leaves and I’ve had to be careful with removing them due to the fish, snails and other animals who now call this small amount of water home.

I’m amazed the fish from the stream are still surviving, which means they are finding food. Perhaps the larvae of midges or mosquitos, although the worry is that this food supply won’t last for long during winter.

It looks like cooler weather and colder nights are on the way as we head to December, so perhaps more birds on the feeders.

In the coming weeks I’m going to look at introducing some more video footage to this blog, perhaps with my daughters getting involved – I’m yet to ask them so we’ll see what is said!

BIRDS ARE NOW USING THE GARDEN FEEDERS

There has been a rise in the number of small birds visiting the garden and this must be down to a combination of cooler weather and the decreasing amount of natural food resources left in the countryside.

Of course it’s still very wet, but colder overnight temperatures mean the need to conserve energy by locating a good food source and staying close to it.

Unfortunately the weather isn’t cold enough to see some of the more infrequent visitors to the garden – so no long tailed tits, redwing, fieldfare etc.

Instead it’s the more year round visitors in house sparrows, tree sparrows, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, robins and dunnocks.

It’s great to see these birds in the garden and I hope some will once again utilise the nest boxes in the garden or even the natural resources.

I’d just finished writing this post when a family of long tailed tits flew into the garden, spending about 20 minutes feeding and chattering. A lovely winter (or any other time) sight in the garden.

One of the jobs during winter is to clean out the nest boxes to make them a lot more hygienic for the birds – and provide them with something they can build something in rather than have a ready built nest from last year which is likely to contact bugs and even parasites.

It also gives a chance to look at how well the nests have been made and see just how many have been occupied.

In 2014 it was the tree and house sparrows that dominated the boxes, but this year I’m hoping to see at least one pair of blue tits or great tits nesting in the garden nest boxes.

The biggest clue will be when the winter overnight roosting takes place, which will need the weather to get a bit colder.

Until then the feeders will need to be topped up and wait for winter to bring its worst. I hope that’s soon so the midges and little flies that are plaguing the garden will be put out of action.