Wednesday 9 May 2012

Garden Birding & New Arrivals

Confined to barracks by the weather, I set the tripod up in the porch on a very grey and cold May Saturday morning, hoping to capture some of the activity on the seed feeding station in the garden, which now gets refilled every other day. The local Goldfinches & Greenfinches are quite partial to emptying the Niger and particularly Sunflower feeders. Whilst crippling mothers purse, it does mean that there frequent visits mean I didn't have to wait too long for a photo opportunity.

Greenfinch
Greenfinch 
Goldfinch
With the Goldies and Greenies not pausing to long on the uprights before descending upon the nuts, I hoped for a slightly slower moving bird. The next to visit was the Coal Tit who seems incapable of staying more than 2 seconds to feed, Im not sure if its a size thing, as an inferior sized member of the Tit family he / she might be intimidated by the larger birds or just the fact they've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed and can't hang around socializing over lunch. 

Finally some slow moving garden inhabitants, as 4 Long tailed Tits joined a couple of Blue Tits on their feeder of choice containing the Fat balls. I think they are such characters!






A midday phone-call, and panic stations!!! Prepare a cricket pitch to play on in less than 24 hours, 10mins later from short drive up the valley, and Im watching 2 rather unexpected visitors in a pair of Ravens circling the field next to my cricket pitch. I don't ever recall seeing them in this part of sleepy Hampshire before. As the afternoon progressed and the sun deciding to put in an appearance, once back in Longparish I thought I'd check on the Greylags, the Goslings seem to have grown substantially in the week or so since I first saw them as a Geese grazed side by side with the rough looking rare breed sheep.

Greylag
I was quite surprised to find a Goldcrest singing in the tree above me as I noticed the newest family arrivals in the village a Mute Swan pair with 4 fluffy grey Cygnets, who couldn't have been no more than a couple of days old.




1 comment:

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