Got the Whitethroat I wished for!

Back from the Norfolk Bird Fair and sitting in my usual spot I saw a small bird flit up from the oil seed rape to the brambles beneath our window where we saw both the Blackcap and Sedge Warbler previously; henceforth this spot will be known as the warbler window. It then sang, revealing itself to be a Whitethroat!

Our first Whitethroat.

It seemed to be gleaning a lot of food morsels from the underside of the stinging nettles.

The list has now moved on to 50, with other additions being Lesser Black-backed Gull, Pheasant and Collared Dove which finally put in an appearance.

Here are some more photos of some garden stuff.

After the young Starlings the other day we have now been visited by this jaunty little Robin. The Blue Tits should be out of the nestbox soon too judging by the racket they are making.

The old 'shufflewing' continues to hurl himself at the window periodically.

Great Spotted Woodpecker. We finally got a visit from this lady's mate, but weren't quick enough for a photo.

Another stunner in the cottage garden.

On the blower to my mate David Lindo, better known as The Urban Birder, talking about Wader Quest business, he being a Trustee and all that, I saw a female Bullfinch sitting on the fence. David must have wondered what the hell was going on as I dropped the phone and shouted to Elis to get her camera and we then spent the next two minutes ooohing and ahhing at this bird and her fine looking mate.

Female Bullfinch arrives near the feeders.

They didn't stop very long; the female appeared to collect some nesting material and they were gone. I then remembered I was supposed to be having a conversation with a rather bewildered Mr Lindo, sorry about that David but I'm sure you understand how it is.

Female Bullfinch on the lawn (that looks more like a meadow in truth!).

Although it only stayed one day the Sedge Warbler singing outside our window was quite a treat, whatever will we get next? Whitethroat perhaps? Here's hoping!

Sedge Warbler singing just outside our window.

We have now also added fly-by House Martin and the first screaming Swifts, summer is really here, cant wait to see what tomorrow brings! Cottage total now 46.

Not sure when we'll get another of these, if ever, so I'm making the most of this one!

Garden tick, but not a bird...

What do you call a day that starts with finding a badger in your garden? A good day, that's what!

Badger digging up our garden!

And making its getaway!

Elis and I went to a car boot today to raise money through the Wader Quest mobile charity shop for our charity project. It was great fun and we did reasonably well all things considered.

The mobile charity shop.

Birdwise in the garden recently, we had been reasonably expecting a few more birds to turn up for the list since it is spingtime. One was pretty well predicted, another only a matter of time but the third a real surprise.

The expected bird was Swallow. They have bred in the past in the garages that were once stables and we hoped that they would return, in any case we thought it likely we would see one of these summer birds at some satge. Well today we did, a swallow swooped over the stable block. we will now have to leave the door open in the hope that they'll nest again this year.

Barn Swallow, not our bird but one we saw a few days ago in Wolverton. Photo: Elis Simpson.

The second bird was Black-headed Gull, as said, inevitable one day with a lake at the bottom of the field, it was a single bird in breeding plumage.

No photo of the Black-headed Gull, instead a Eurasian Blackbird with a beak full of worms.

One afternoon my son and I were gazing out across the field watching his frriends plodding about among the oil seed rape when I heard the unmistakable sound of piping oystercatchers. I scanned but could see none on the ground, then Martin, my son, pointed to three birds in flight. It was the oystercatchers. I watched them circling around calling until one of the birds peeled off and flew strongly west and away, the remaining two circled slowly down and I have reason to believe they may be forming a territory down by the lake. As a wader lover this is a very unexpected and pleasing addition to our cottage list.

Guess what? You guessed it, no decent photo, so... Greenfinch instead.

We have also had a bit of fun with a Dunnock. This chap has taken to sitting on our windowsill singing to himself in the window's reflection and occasionally pecking at himself. Once or twice he flung himself at the glass, but soon learned this was a fool's errand.

Ok, not the demented Dunnock, a Robin instead.

I still spend much time gazing skywards in the hope of seeing our first swift.

Obviously no swift picture; Eurasian Jackdaw.

An odd pair of tits

That title should get my hits up a bit! But seriously though has anyone else noticed pairs of mixed tit species going around together? We have a perfectly bog standard pair of Blue Tits using an old dilapidated nest box that has seen better days on the end of the garage block. They have been collecting nesting material for some time now. We also have a splendid pair of Great Tits that come regularly to the feeders and confound us with their multitude of different songs and calls.

Blue Tit gathering nesting material

However we also have a pairing of a Great Tit and a Blue Tit. these two birds are inseparable, where one goes the other is sure to follow. They will forage together through the Ribes bush, fly off together into the surrounding trees and appear again, always together. We've not seen any kind of pairing or mating behaviour to be honest, they just seem to be good mates, very odd.

The odd couple

This reminds me of the unusual pair of tits at Hanson Educational Study Centre in Newport Pagnell. We have often been there to look for the Willow Tit, which again almost invariably appears with a Marsh Tit. Last year we wondered if they had formed a pair and mused as to what we would call the offspring, would they be Wish Tits or Mallow Tits?
.

Marsh, Willow, Wish or Mallow Tit?

Here's the other one!

Cottage list update.

The garden list has grown somewhat since Wader Quest gave me a breather and therefore the chance to do a blog here, we now boast 37 species.

On of the most bizarre birds we have seen has been a pair of Red-legged Partridges. Now it wouldn't have been that unusual if we were to report we saw them from the cottage window overlooking the fields, but these birds were in our garden, which has got a dirty great brick wall all around it! They ended up scuttling up the path between the houses and presumably that is the way they came in.

Red-legged Partridge among the primroses in the flower bed!

At the bottom of the field, where the Swans are usually seen, from time to time we get geese leaving the lake and sitting around in the grass, both Greylag and Canada Goose have now been added to the list. The swans though are presumably nesting somewhere as they seem to have stopped visiting the part of the field that we can see, although a walk down there the other day revealed that there is in fact two pairs.

Common Buzzard enjoys the spring sunshine

A couple of times we have seen Little Egrets flying near the lakes. It still seems mighty strange to be putting Little Egret on my garden list, along with Red Kite when I think of the lengths I had to go to to see them for the first time in the UK many years ago.

Woodpigeon collecting nesting material

A single Kestrel hovering over the field is the only one-off sighting we have had of this species, but I expect we'll see him again. Great Spotted Woodpeckers have visited the feeders a couple of times but we have yet to get a photo of one. This is the first time I have ever had these terrific birds on any feeder I have owned, a great feeling especially as we also get the Green Woodpecker on the lawn from time to time.

Green and Goldfinches, colourful regulars

Three birds that I have heard but not yet seen are Skylark, Chiff Chaff and Blackcap, one of which has sung a couple of times nearby. Another bird that I had only previously heard has now shown itself, a Song Thrush visited the area under our feeders one day but has not yet returned, however he has taken to singing much closer to the cottage now.

Song Thrush caught as he was leaving.

We have had a couple of short stay visitors. The shortest was a Lesser Redpoll that stayed just one day and a Reed Bunting that stayed for a few days. The Marsh Tit seems to have moved on too as we haven't seen it for some time.

Lesser Redpoll on its single day of visiting.

Reed Bunting stopped by for a few days.

There are still some birds that I am amazed we haven't seen, House Sparrow, at least one pair no more than 100 yards away but never ventured into sight, and Collared Doves. The estate has them, we see them every time we go out, but they have not yet appeared here. Just a matter of time I suspect, after all the Starlings have now found us, as has a perishing squirrel!

New Garden - New List! Birds of The Cottage.

Elis and I have moved back to Newport Pagnell in Bucks. Our brief sojourn to Northants didn't work out too well with regard to garden birds although we did try to attract as many as we could. The really cold snap in early 2013 helped a great deal adding some new species. In the end the list was a mere 41 (not nearly as impressive as our Brazilian fourth-floor apartment which ended on 101). Highlights were a long staying Fieldfare and a small group of Siskins that brought with them a Lesser Redpoll one day.

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis cabaret, Siskin Carduelis spinus and Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis A lone Lesser Redpoll visited our feeder arriving with a group of Siskins.

Our new abode is slightly more rural in the sense that it backs onto fields. in Northants we had regular Buzzards overflying the house but here we have Red Kites as well as Buzzards, in fact they are much more regularly seen. We have also seen a Sparrowhawk just the once.

The feeders already attract a small number of birds including Great and Blue Tit, both of which were very occasional visitors to the feeders further north. Finches are represented by Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Goldfinch so far, thrushes by Blackbird, Song Thrush (heard only singing his heart out in the early morning, but we have yet to find him) and Robins.

Great Tits Parus major; This pair inspected the nest box, but seem to have lost interest.

There are Dunnocks and Wrens making up the compliment of small birds. In addition there is a large Wood Pigeon that visits every day, we'll draw a veil over the Feral Pigeon that flew over and in the field we have seen Magpies, Carrion Crows, Rooks and Jackdaws.

Dunnock Prunella modularis; among the spring primroses.

At the bottom of the field there are some ponds and down there we sometimes get Mute Swans and Cormorants and surprisingly so far we have only seen Starling once when a pair sat on the barn roof, the male singing for all it was worth. Recently we heard a Green Woodpecker yaffling, but we couldn't get a look at it however today a female came to visit our lawn in search of something to eat.

Green Woodpecker Picus viridis; this female perched on the apple tree before going to the lawn.

Green Woodpecker Picus viridis; feeding on the lawn.

As if this wasn't exciting enough we also got a Cottage tick when  Marsh Tit came briefly to the feeders, lets hope it'll be back soon.

Marsh Tit Poecile palustris; a brief visit. 

Signs of spring are in the air too, the Great Tits inspected the nest box and are singing away, the as yet unseen Song Thrush gives forth every morning and the Blackbirds are warming up. Today we saw the first evidence of Dunnocks nesting when a bird was seen carrying nesting material and headed for a bush in the neighbour's garden. The other day a Goldfinch spent some time tearing moss from the lawn to construct its nest, but it flew away over the barn so we don't know where it is nesting exactly.

European Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis; this individual was collecting nesting material. It landed on the mossy lawn and although it already had a beak full of white downy material it attempted to collect moss from the lawn often dropping the downy material and hastening after it.

The other night we gave a talk to the Chorleywood RSPB group about our charity Wader Quest, when we returned there was a pair of toads in a passionate clinch on our doorstep.

Common Toad Bufo bufo; caught in the act on our doorstep!

All of this means that The Cottage list is at 24 after just four days, and we can expect much more to come I think!

Good looking gulls.

I don't know about you, but I'm not one of those that finds gulls fascinating, unlike with waders I can't sit and sift through a flock and study the minutiae of plumage details. Don't misunderstand me though, I find them really attractive and on our travels around the world we have seen some real corkers.

Hartlaub's Gull Croicocephalus hartlaubii; Simonstown, Western Cape, South Africa.

Red-billed Gull Croicocephalus scopulinus; Christchurch, Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand. 

Dolphin Gull Leucophaeus scoresbii; Porvenir, Tierra del Fuego, Chile.

Grey Gull Leucophaeus modestus; Antofagasta, Antofagasta, Chile. 

Heermann's Gull Larus heermanni; San Diego, California, USA.

Belcher's Gull Larus belcheri; Villa Marshes, Lima, Peru.

Franklin's Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan; Villa Marshes, Lime Peru.

Andean Gull Croicocephalus serranus; Marcapomacocha, Junín, Peru.

Ivory Gull Pagophila eburnea; Patrington, Humberside, England.

Brown-headed Gull Croicocephalus brunnicephalus; Bang Poo, Samut Prakan, Thailand.

Kep Gull Larus dominicanus; Punta Arenas, Magellanes y Antárctica Chilena, Chile

Laughing Gull Leucophaeus atricilla; Everglades National Park, Florida, USA. 

Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis; Bolsa Chica, California, USA.

Western Gull Larus occidentalis; San Diego, California, USA.