Millennium Wood and Garden Birds

I stopped off for a brief walk this morning round Millennium Wood - not as many species around as last week. The usual wood pigeons and carrion crows and a couple of blue tits. A small flock of lesser redpoll (had chance for a better look this time and am pretty confident they are all lesser!) were still present feeding on silver birch seeds. There were loads of blackbirds feeding on hawthorn berries in a hedgerow just over the road from the reserve but no fieldfares or redwings!

Bird-wise the garden is still fairly quiet. Below is a list of the species visiting last week (the number of individual birds refers to the maximum seen in the garden at any one time and not the total number in a week!!).

Blue Tit 3
House Sparrow 14
Feral Pigeon 5
Blackbird 2
Goldfinch 9
Great Tit 2
Coal Tit 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 (a female and male are both visiting but never at the same time)
Robin 1
Dunnock 1
Long Tailed tit 4
Carrion Crow 1
Wood Pigeon 3
Grey Heron 1 - it was by the pond but flew off as soon I walked in the kitchen (we get a couple of visits each year from this species)
Stock Dove 1 (pleased to see this species again - not a regular visitor)


Apart from long-tailed tit, carrion crow and grey heron all the species visited the feeders or took food from the ground. At the moment there is a container full of fat balls, a fat-filled half coconut, two feeders with sunflower hearts and a feeder with a seed and dried mealworm mix. I also put seed on the lawn and bird table and throw a few apples on the lawn. I stopped putting out peanuts last winter as they just weren't getting eaten. The sunflower hearts are by far the most popular food.

We are getting up to four grey squirrels in the garden eating food that falls from the feeders above - must admit there is a baffle on the feeding station pole to protect the feeders from squirrel attack!






I'm reading a brilliant book at the moment - "Life Stories" by David Attenborough. The book provides the complete texts of the first 5 months of the weekly BBC radio ten minute talks given by David Attenborough in 2009. Each chapter is illustrated by his personal selection of pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed his Frozen Planet TV series - it was really superb.