i just heard an owl outside my window and it occured to me when was the last time

[lamehorse]

i saw a garden bird !? or heard a loud dawn chorus or any bird singing ? i know its winter but i cant remember any in the summer either or spring . where are they ?

 

[*hic*]

Well, the last time I saw an owl was when I was driving to get haylage yesterday. As for garden birds yesterday I saw wren, bluetit, robin, starling, tree sparrow, house sparrow, blackbird, collared dove - may be something to do with supplying seed feeders and fat balls for them. On my field and the field next to it were swans by the thousand, as well as a few pheasant, and partridge.

No problems with the dawn chorus round here, and we get the added extra of the swans flying over with their wild music morning and evening.

 

[lamehorse]

also occurred to me i have insomnia !

 

[lamehorse]

right well im going to buy some feed for them then ! it must be the time of night but it was starting to weird me out ! i couldnt remember seeing a single bird ( apart from pigeons, gulls and a robin ) for ages ! i remember when i was young hundreds of blackbirds , starling and sparrows all shouting and flying around . the skies seem empty now .really should get some sleep !

 

[Enfys]

i saw a garden bird !? or heard a loud dawn chorus or any bird singing ? i know its winter but i cant remember any in the summer either or spring . where are they ?

Are there lots of cats around? Do you feed them? (birds, not cats)

I cheat and bribe my birds, I feed them all year round, most have gone South now, but the diehards hang around. I used to have aviaries, but now I just have to go outside - love it! I have become a bit of a closet twitcher!

We have owls, but I rarely see them, these are just some of our summer birds:

Sitting on a fence post 50' from the house - normal.

The last is one of my favourites, he looks as if a 5 year old child was allowed to colour him in!

 

[lamehorse]

wow thank you for the amazing photos they are beautiful ! i have never fed the birds and now think i must ! there are a few cats about here and not much hedgerow so that probably is a factor. i just dont seem to see them in general like flying around , but then i really shouldnt go around staring at the sky .

 

[Lakelandcross]

i saw a garden bird !? or heard a loud dawn chorus or any bird singing ? i know its winter but i cant remember any in the summer either or spring . where are they ?

They are sitting in our back garden eating the tons of seed, nuts and fat balls that my wife puts out for them.

 

[Luci07]

think I will switch to fat balls, seem to have lost all my normal visitors that I have in the summer! We also have green parakeets (sp?! sorry!) but don't see them in Winter. At the moment all I seem to be feeding is some robins (lovely) and very very fat wood pigeons..

 

[TheEquineOak]

This little fellow comes to visit us every once in a while

We too have bluetits, wrens, goldfinches, chafinches, robins, wood pigeons, doves, sparrows magpies rolleyes wagtails... we got a lot of continental and African birds in the summer

You've got to buy specific food for each breed and et voile....they will all appear in your garden

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

We live on a windswept hill overlooking the cairngorms with limited no deciduous trees apart from a line of old beeches and you would think it would be very limited, but we are packed with birds. Linnets, owls, skylarks, redwinds, fieldfares, warblers, all the finches and tits, pipits,robins, dunnocks, wagtails, cuckoo, swallow, buzzard, snipe, pheasant, starling etc etc. Have seen a red kite fairly near too ) Not many sparrows tho they do live at the next farm, it seems to be a bit exposed for them here.

One reason is that lots of the fields are edged with broom, which gives great shelter, and our fields are rather messy and scrubby so lots of seeds, and also up here most farmers dont plough after harvest but leave it till spring like farmers down south used to. Also we have sheep horses and geese which gives lots of insect opportunities when added to neighbours cattle.

Also we do feed the birds, we had 3 months of continual snow cover here last winter and at times had up to 60 birds feeding from feed put out for the geese/hens etc, I always put out half for the poultry and half for the wildies. They rely on us very much.

My fave is the linnet as I had never seen one before coming here.

 

[lamehorse]

kaylouise is that some kind of woodpecker ? kingfisher ?

 

[Scoundrel]

We've got a lady robin living in the stable barn its very cute and suprisingly unscared of people, just sits there watching us. Very sweet little thing

 

[henryhorn]

Living here!
Those damned owls keep me awake most nights, we have little owls, barn owls etc and they sometimes hoot every ten to twenty seconds through the night.
You don't get a dawn chorus in winter, the birds have just about stopped recently, I think they are all too cold in themornings to waste energy singing..
Our bird population is incredible, I get woodpeckers, nuthatches, tree creepers, finches, chaffinches, millions of tits, magpies, jackdaws all visiting the bird table every day.
The secret is a good wild bird mix as well as peanuts.
Now if anyone could suggest a way of shutting the owls up I'd be grateful!

 

[Doris68]

Lamehorse - it's a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. Kingfishers are much, much smaller and mainly live (and hunt) near rivers and streams.

BTW, if you want to attract Goldfinches, use Niger seeds - they're wonderful to see (birds not Niger seed!!). Just loove all the birds we get on the bird table.

 

[TheEquineOak]

Yep Spot On. He's a great spotted woodpecker. Noisey little bugger at that!

You can't mistake a Kingfisher, they are stunning birds, only ever seen one

 

[NeverSayNever]

Are there lots of cats around? Do you feed them? (birds, not cats)

I cheat and bribe my birds, I feed them all year round, most have gone South now, but the diehards hang around. I used to have aviaries, but now I just have to go outside - love it! I have become a bit of a closet twitcher!

We have owls, but I rarely see them, these are just some of our summer birds:

Sitting on a fence post 50' from the house - normal.

The last is one of my favourites, he looks as if a 5 year old child was allowed to colour him in!

thanks for sharing these lovely pics! where do you live? and what kind of birds are they all?

 

[TheEquineOak]

Enfys -

I'm sick of you showing off with your gorgeous pics n'all

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Living here!
Those damned owls keep me awake most nights, we have little owls, barn owls etc and they sometimes hoot every ten to twenty seconds through the night.
You don't get a dawn chorus in winter, the birds have just about stopped recently, I think they are all too cold in themornings to waste energy singing..
Our bird population is incredible, I get woodpeckers, nuthatches, tree creepers, finches, chaffinches, millions of tits, magpies, jackdaws all visiting the bird table every day.
The secret is a good wild bird mix as well as peanuts.
Now if anyone could suggest a way of shutting the owls up I'd be grateful!

You're lucky, we have the owls in the colder months and the oystercatches peeping all night in the spring/summer.....but I like it!

 

[loz9]

We have this guy living around us:

(Sorry for the poor quality pic was through a window on my phone)
See him/her most nights especially in the summer when the hay is at a good height. We also have a fair few birds around us despite having 6 of our own cats & several feral cats.

 

[spotty_pony]

I see a Heron from time to time when I'm hacking out the horses at work! The last time I heard birds singing was this morning when I was mucking out.

 

[Slinkyunicorn]

Have loads of birds of all sorts round here - I have big old hedge around my garden which helps but we have sparrows, robins, blackbirds,woodpeckers, cuckoos,finches, swallows, swifts, housemartins, owls (little and barn most common), buzzards, red kites etc etc as well as the gulls, crows,magpies, pigeons and stupid pheasants. Loads of herons in the brook as well as moorhens and mallards with swans a bit further down and best of all we have a kingfisher who is the most beautiful bird.

 

[Enfys]

thanks for sharing these lovely pics! where do you live? and what kind of birds are they all?

I live in Southern Ontario.

Turkey Vulture. Part of an enormous flock of Grackles, red wing blackbirds and starlings in a paddock.

Ruby throated hummingbird # 1 male #2 female

Tree swallow, Rose breasted Grosbeak, Grackle,

Northern Flicker (huge ground feeding woodpecker sort of thingy)

Kaylouise Thankyou

 

[Rose Folly]

We're inundated with birds too, but I do feed them all the year round. Apart from the stable robin, who sits on the bins and supervises when I'm mixing the feed, my favourites are Mr and Mrs Quacker (original names or what!), a very devoted pair of wild mallard who come for breakfast and tea with the horses each day. Mr Quacker is getting on a bit and I don't think his legs are too good so I spoil him a lot. They always arrive on foot, but having eaten hop onto the brook and float back down to their home in the next field.

The only bird that irritates me is the nightjar who took up residence last summer. I've never seen him/her, but the racket trebles my insomnia rating!

 

[Taffyhorse]

We get lots and I also feed them all year round - costs me a small fortune but its well worth it. Our bird tables are about 12 ft away from our sitting room window and its lovely to see them all so close - blue and great tits, occasional coal tit, robins, Greater spotted Woodpeckers, goldfinches and chaffinches, the occasional Jay, Magpie (!), blackbirds, thrushes, wagtails, pheasants, pigeons, collar doves and a whole stack of little brown jobs which include sparrows, dunnocks and god knows what else.

Often here owls at night and have seen a few. Also get a buzzard from time to time and did spot a Sparrowhawk sitting on the fence post near the bird tables which was the cue for everything else to rapidly disappear.

They nest/roost under the eaves and in the summer normally wake us up anything from 5am onwards, often fly into the bedroom or kitchen for a quick nose around and back out again.