UKH

Great breakast time viewing today on the feeder or below it. No pictures yet, but may try tomorrow. About 6 goldfinches, 6 or more blue tits, male bullfinch, nuthatch, chaffinches including young, robin, and of course a raven. No woodpecker yet, unless it was before I got up. Plenty of rat activity (see my other thread), but yet to see rat v. raven interaction.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Taking advantage of having Killer Hayfever to go through some photos: we’ve had a great season in our smallish garden. Taken from my conservatory bird hide. 

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Robins

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

And a male tree sparrow feeding its young.  Well, one of them anyway.

In reply to Billhook:

House sparrow. I live in hope though !  They are around locally. This morning, saw two families of willow tits at a place where I don’t think they’ve been recorded breeding. That’s the third family group very local to me. Well good. 
 

Few more from the garden. The starling looking particularly fine. The stock doves have made a nest under my solar panels. 

In reply to Rog Wilko:

We've only been visited once, and only long enough for 3 completely crap and one maybe not terrible photo before it flew off.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Just started reading Wilding and within an hour I've already downloaded the Merlin app. You've now made me wonder if I can sneakily set up a bird feeder outside my block of flats. This thread may have unwittingly encouraged a new obsession... 

In reply to Queen of the Traverse:

Do it.  And Merlin is good, but it can throw up the odd bird that’s way out (eg some sparrow that only exists in the nether regions of Outer Mongolia and needs yak poo to make its nest) 

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

That starling looks a right spiv, like private Walker

In reply to Queen of the Traverse:

You may have heard that a film called Wilding about the Knepp story has just started it’s distribution. We saw the  debut at Rheged last night. It was nice to watch (though I couldn’t hear the soundtrack as my appointment for ear de-waxing wasn’t until today). Merlin is brilliant, though sadly you need quite a good phone signal. As for bird feeders, a friend has one with suckers so you can stick it to the outside of your window.

Wilding is a superb book, once you’ve skipped the first chapter. In my opinion Isabella Tree is a very gifted writer, as well as having a great name.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Yes, that's what made me decide to read it first! I took my Merlin for a walk today. It could identify a peregrine hanging out my bedroom window in Sheffield (me, not the peregrine), when I couldn't hear anything much, but not a pheasant in the woods. Hmm. Seems half the job is hearing anything other than blackbirds! 

In reply to Rog Wilko:

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

Those young robins are very cute. And great irridescence on the starlings, one of my favourite birds. When I lived in Fife there was a nest behind my neighbours gutter, 3 feet from my window. They eventually got so used to us watching we could stand right there and they were happy coming and going. 

In reply to kevin stephens:

Just in case you didn't know, that GS Woodpecker is a juvenile - nice piccy

Male red strip on back of head, female no red on head, juvenile red cap

In reply to Michael Hood:

Not my bird table, it´s in the local cemetery, but it gave me my best Hawfinch pic yet:

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Have they ever had any visitors? We had one of those up for a while but nothing ever visited it. Tried a few different windows. I occasionally wonder about giving it another shot

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Here´s another of my favourites, even if it´s bending the rules a bit - the whole of my balcony basically became a bird table 2 years ago when Blackbirds nested in one of the flower boxes. This is the male on one of his seldom brooding shifts, panting and shading the fledglings but surely really suffering on a day when it was 35°C in the shade. The parents did a damn good job; 4 of the 5 fledglings survived and flew into the surrounding trees a few days later.

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

Damn !! I took one look at the brown head....................... (I should have trusted your excellent ID skills in the first place.

In reply to Billhook:

As well as the brown cap, has a different cheek pattern, and a distinctly different chirp - had the pleasurable experience earlier this year walking through a Northumberland hamlet near the sea (Low Hauxley) that has both House & Tree Sparrows so that the differences could be easily appreciated.

In reply to aln:

These starlings were 'enjoying' the balmy breezes coming off the Mersey a few days ago when I was visiting my mum.