WINTER SHOWING ITS TEETH

This week has been cold, mainly overcast, with the odd small snow flurry. Typical February really, allowing winter to demonstrate it’s his season and warmth is something that only March can start to have.

The good thing for wildlife watchers is it gives you chance to attract wildlife by providing food, then sitting back and enjoying the show.

My fat snacks, peanuts and seed mix have all been enjoyed by a wide variety of small birds during the day, while I’m sure the local vole and mice population has taken the free hand-outs dropped by the birds during the hours of darkness.

Once again the main birds on show have been the three tits – great, blue and long tailed – while the flock of house sparrows has been joined by a small one of chaffinches.

The blackbirds and robins have also been making the most of the food, while a few dunnocks are also about regularly.

I’ve not seen many magpies or jays, so can only assume I’ve either missed them or they come when I’m not at home.

What I did see today was the greater spotted woodpecker, which is good news as I thought the resident one had long gone. It scared the other little birds from one of the fat snack feeders and gorged for a few minutes before one of the many resident cats spooked it and other birds to flee.

As the nights become lighter I’m looking forward to seeing more action around the garden, although it looks increasingly like I won’t be seeing anything inside one of my nest boxes.

I’ve been trying to fix the problem – and find it – for a few weeks now and I think it’s a problem with the antenna from the camera to my remote receiver by the TV.

The final chance is if an engineer at the place it was bought will be able to help when I call later this week.

Keep your fingers crossed there is a solution and we can all see some nest box action this spring.

IS SPRING AROUND THE CORNER?

I’ve been working for the last few days to fix the nestbox camera, but with no success. I’m going to give it one more go next weekend and then leave it for another year.

During the milder weather recently, the sunshine has given the bird a new lease of life; gone was the days of simply foraging for food to survive and in came looking for a mate and potential nest site.

I watched as both a pair of blue tits and great tits spent time looking at the camera nestbox from various angles and tried different flight patterns from vantage points towards the nestbox.

I haven’t seen any bird actually fly in to or around the nestbox, but I think there has been one bird, or more, roosting in there. If I was to guess I would say it would be a great tit; that’s based on what I noted when the camera was working.

The warm sunshine has brought the dawn chorus to life, with plenty of song in the last couple of days, plus plenty of birds hanging around my garden and surrounding area.

It now appears that the song thrush I’ve seen and heard a lot recently has found either a mate or foe. Judging by the way one was chasing after the other for about ten minutes in the bushes and trees suggest to me that it will be a mate and a breeding pair could set up a nest near the garden.

I’ll be keeping my eye out for them both in case of nesting activity and new chicks.

Talking of chicks I thought I saw a fledgling blackbird recently, but put it down to a slightly differently coloured female.

My thoughts changed when I saw said female in the garden, and it was joined by a definite female and they reacted to one another like they knew each other.

Has anyone ever known blackbirds to breed in winter?

Feeding the birds regularly can be quite exciting as three recent examples show.

Firstly I filled the seed feeder and two fat snack feeders and as I approached the trees that I regularly hang them in (different locations each time), there was a sudden burst of noise coming from the surrounding bushes and trees and I saw a small flock of house sparrows, joined by various species including chaffinch, great tit and blue tit, along with a couple of robins.

They all had appeared to be welcoming me and the food I was bringing and within seconds of me hanging them out, the small birds were taking their turn on the feeders.

Secondly a robin, which appears every time I’m working in the garden or hanging out feeder, has been hovering in flight trying to get at a fat snack in hanging feeder. The hover doesn’t last for long, but he/she is getting much more accomplished at getting food.

Finally the long tailed tits are still making regular visits to the garden, particularly the peanut feeder and as I spend more and more time in the garden, I can sometimes hear the flock coming.

It’s these interactions with nature that ensures I’ll always be a fan and friend of wildlife.

SONG THRUSH SONGS BRIGHTEN UP ANY WINTER DAY

As winter keeps us on our toes with bouts of cold weather and potential snow, the wildlife seems to be more and more attracted to my garden.

In the last week the flock of long tailed tits has visited at least once a day, often more than once, with one or two jays – I think it may be a pair – now feeding confidently in the garden; well as confident as this shy bird can be!

My favourite piece of recent news is the arrival of a song thrush to the garden, which appears to have taken up residence in and around the garden.

It has been singing from various high points in the trees in the last ten days, sometimes for hours on end.

The very latest on the song thrush is that it now appears there are two of them – I’m hoping the singing has been performed by the male and he has attracted a female.

I hope they have found a place to nest and that it is close by. The songs have been beautiful and I must have heard at least 20 different ones over the last week or so.

The flocks of smaller birds are getting bigger, with the blue tits, great tits, tree sparrows, house sparrows and chaffinches often joined by robins, blackbirds and the odd wren in the garden.

They’re all enjoying the fat snacks, peanuts and seeds I’m putting out for them and when I refill the feeders, the birds seem to know what I’m doing and I can hear them excitedly chattering and gathering close to where I put them in the trees.

I haven’t heard the wailing of mating foxes this year, although I know they’re about. To many people the sound is very distressing as it’s often in the middle of the night and does sound like a baby crying from a lot of pain.

The tawny owls have not been heard for a few weeks, although I’m sure they’ve taken refuge further towards the woods for greater protection from the weather conditions; I hope to hear them again soon.

Until then, let’s hope the promised cold weather and snow won’t have too negative effect on the wildlife and the birds benefit from my handouts.

BIRDWATCH 2013 BRING SURPRISE VISITOR

After the wildlife in and around my garden spent the last few weeks dealing with the cold, frosty and often snowy weather, this weekend brought a whole new set of meteorological setting for them.

The snow melt and heavy rain has led to lots of flooding, but also an opportunity as temperatures rise and a host of flying insects took to the air.

Looking at the week ahead would suggest that the weather will be windy and fairly wet, offering not much comfort for those insects. The good news is those insects are about and hiding when the weather is cold.

I carried out the RSPB’s 2013 Birdwatch survey this weekend and it was good to see plenty of the birds I usually see coming along for me to officially count.

Three types of tits – great, blue and long-tailed – along with jays, blackbirds, wrens, tree and house sparrows, dunnocks, chaffinches, robins and a lovely surprise in a female bullfinch.

This survey is important and I had help from my young daughter who was very excited seeing the robins and blackbirds.

The blackbirds are a couple and she now calls them Mr and Mrs, well after I’d tried to tell her the colouring differences between male and female. Perhaps I’ll leave that again for another day!

Watching the female bullfinch was a nice surprise and while I’ve seen bullfinches before in my garden, their visits are rare.

One sight that is rare in the summer and not much more common in the other seasons is the long tailed tit.

In winter I often see a flock of them hanging from all sorts of angles in the trees, chattering to each other before one, and then the rest descend on my feeders – mainly the peanut ones.

The flock numbers about ten and during the last few days they’ve been seen every day.

So will the change in weather bring any more exciting visitors, or perhaps more indications that thoughts of the birds and other wildlife are turning to the breeding season.

I’m now going to try and fix the nestbox camera and see which if the tits will be first to claim it for their own this year.

WEATHER WARNING OR JUST WEATHER?

So the first snow of the winter arrived tonight as I arrived home from work. Only about a couple of millimetres, but at least something that should show the animals that will walk around the garden and surrounding areas at night.

I took my torch and filled a couple of the bird feeders to ensure some food for the small birds when they wake up in the morning. I’m unlikely to see them enjoying it as I’ll be away before first light and home after dark.

At least the weekend is here and Saturday should tell me how much the food was appreciated.

I’m expecting the feeders to have been more or less emptied, although that does depend entirely on how much snow does arrive.

The forecast suggested we’d get a fairly large amount, although I get the feeling it won’t be too much, certainly not enough to stop me being away all day.

Having snow in the garden is a great way of seeing the pattern of footprints, working our who they belong to and try to work out which order they went in to find out how each animal goes about its food search.

I sometimes use this knowledge to place food, or help cultivate an area. One of the key things I did in the autumn was fill the borders with dead leaves and cut grass to provide a layer of protection to the soil, a habitat to those small animals that live in and around the leaf litter and soil, a food source for birds and small mammals that eat those small creatures and fertiliser for the soil when spring comes around.

It has worked in previous years and I can tell be the fact the leaves are scattered around that the birds are finding food in there. The only thing I’d like to see is the birds, particularly the blackbirds, putting the leaves etc back!

So what will tonight bring? I hope snow and a few inches, but thing this is something others will enjoy and I will have to gaze at the news images and video and wonder what it would be like.

WINTER WEATHER WINGING OUR WAY

The warm start to 2013 has been abruptly halted as we experience some cold weather, with the promise of some snow on Monday.

I’m still sceptical that the snow will reach my garden, but I’m hoping it does. It’s not great for the plants and animals, but it’s an important part of the nature for British wildlife.

Most of the birds, mammals and insects will be happy once the results of the winter weather give them a good chance of a positive breeding season.

In 2013 my garden has twice been visited by a passing group of long tailed tits, but as the weather wasn’t too cold they moved on fairly quickly.

I expect to see more of them in the next week or so. Today a small group of chaffinches visited the garden, making up a bigger flock of visitors with the tree and house sparrows.

There has been a splendid looking robin in the garden, which I’m presuming is a male as he’s looking dominant and very brightly coloured. If an artist had painted on his red breast it wouldn’t be better than how this robin is currently ‘dressed’.

The blue tits and great tits are still around and I’m hoping to have my nest box camera working to see if any are roosting in there.

As I have four nest boxes around the garden, I hope that the small birds use them to escape the winter cold.

Two years ago I noticed a great tit roosting in there in January and February, giving it control over nesting rights. I’ve stocked up all my feeders and will check them every other day while the cold snap continues as I’m expecting them to be ‘popular’.

So bring on the snow and frosty nights, and I can see which animals are leaving footprints in my garden and the surrounding lanes.

FAREWELL 2012 & WELCOME 2013

So as 2012 comes to and end and the dawn of 2013 is the next one we’ll see, I for one am hoping for some changes to the weather we saw this year.

The weather at the start of 2013 promises to be dry and, at various points mild, which is not brilliant for wildlife in the long run.

A short and harsh winter will ensure bugs and bacteria, which would otherwise survive in milder conditions, are killed off, leaving smaller numbers to breed in spring and summer. The larger numbers of bugs and bacteria to start with, the worse it could be for birds and mammals in the breeding season.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be trying to fixing my nest box camera and hoping that the blue or great tits will make it into a home for delivering the next generation in 2013.

In January I’ll be looking at which animals and mammals are visiting my garden, hoping to have pictures and video of any birds spending the night in my nest box.

I can’t say I’m sad to say goodbye to 2012, especially after watching the demise of the great tit chicks and knowing others suffered similar fates across the bird world, but also because the extremely wet conditions has probably affected many other wildlife in a negative way.

So onwards and upwards as we embrace 2013, let’s hope the wildlife and all of us have a better and drier one too!