WINTER TEMPTATIONS NOT ATTRACTING USUAL WINTER VISITORS

This weekend the garden had three pairs of human eyes looking out for birds, although they weren’t the only eyes looking at the garden. There was also by a pair of cat eyes – an unwelcome sight for everyone else.

Once the cat was chased off the counting began; the first tick in the box came for the… grey squirrel, which was quite ironic as we’d not seen one for a couple of months!

But the usual suspects started turning up soon after and within an hour we’d seen most of the birds we see during a weekend.

House sparrow – 8

Tree sparrow – 5

Blue tit – 4

Goldfinch – 4

Dunnock – 4

Blackbird – 3

Robin – 2

Great tit – 2

Magpie – 2

Wren – 1

Unfortunately no long tailed tits, great spotted woodpeckers or starlings, but I know they’re around.

The new nest box has been up for a week and it now has one of the cameras inside it. I hope it will not put off the birds like it has done in in one of the boxes in the triple sparrow nest box.

There is hope for it because it does have a pitched roof, which can house the camera and not interfere with nest building or even put any birds of nesting there.

The only location for the nest box is underneath the triple sparrow nest box, and hopefully the ivy growing up the wall will act as a cover to the entrance. It could even keep the noise down from the noisy sparrow neighbours!

With winter only showing glimpses of its might, sometimes just for a night of low (ish) temperatures before reaching 10c or more the next day, it’s no wonder not many fieldfares, redwings and other wintering birds haven’t been seen.

Instead tulips, crocuses, daffodils and snowdrops are all either growing or flowering. It’s great adding colour to the garden in January, but I fear winter has one big icy blast up its sleeve.

And given the odd report of swallows wintering in the UK and ducklings being born in December and January, I hope no garden birds decide to start the breeding season early and get caught out by winter finally getting its act together.

SUMMER SUN IS BRIGHTENING UP THE WILDLIFE

The house sparrows are becoming even shyer as the signal from the blue tit nest box camera is intermittent at best.

I fear they’ve either pecked at it or pushed nesting material and forced the emitting antennae to malfunction.

I can’t try to fix the problem, as the eggs are about to hatch or have hatched in the last 24 hours – I suspect the latter as activity has certainly increased to the nest box.

I bought some mealworms last week, which attracted plenty of birds to the feeders, particularly the house sparrow parents in the neighbourhood – I counted at least ten adults at one point so presume there are at least six nests in and around the garden.

Unfortunately all the mealworms have now gone, after a night-time thief raided the containers outside the back door and took what was remaining.

The thief also carried out a daytime raid, so my list of main suspects is down to two – magpies or grey squirrel.

The squirrel hasn’t been seen recently, while the magpies have a nest nearby and are almost daily visitors to the garden.

I’ll have to keep the next lot of mealworms locked away more securely!

No hedgehogs yet, but I’m pretty hopeful of being able to pick up one or two rescued ones next weekend.

Finally I’ve planted out a number of sunflowers, broad beans and runner beans, all with biodegradable slug and snail pellets.

The first night didn’t capture many of the plant destroyers, so I hope for the hedgehogs’ sake that the neighbours have plenty!