Hobbies and Crafts

Hello Tec (and Ianto), not seen you on here for a while, hope all is OK with you.

Our feeders have been working overtime the past few days. We actually had a thrush in the garden according to my OH this morning but it was chased off by a blackbird. Must have considered he was on his pitch. We have had quite a few goldfinches today and also chaffinches plus all the usual, yesterday we had a pied wagtail as well

Still no sign of Jude.

If I don't speak to you again Tec, have a great Christmas.

Hi Everyone,
Garden full of hungry birds - just regular visitors - hoards of sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, blue tits, great tits, solitary starling, blackbirds, curiously the doves that reside here have disappeared. Jackdaws of course, and a red kite is around daily.

Ann - your thread is almost a year old, and I should like to thank you for it. Always interesting, and gives pleasure to many people with a common interest - I always look forward to reading the contributions.

I hope everyone here has a happy and peaceful Christmas, may your feeders be full to overflowing.............

Best wishes to all - from Tec, and Ianto.

They do love the fat balls don't they, we mainly get sparrows and starlings on ours but occasionally a blue tit will have a go too. Not had magpies on them though, and certainly don't have moorhens. I wouldn't have found the thread except I had book marked it.

I have been looking for this thread ,thought it had gone lol
I put some Fat Balls out this afternoon as there have been hoards of birds all looking hungry today.One ball had 2 magpies feeding off ,and underneath were 2 Moorhens,picking up the bits that fell off.
We have also had a Buzzard flying very low today.I had to melt the water in the bird bath as it was solid ice.

Me again, where is everyone. Hope you haven't all got flu.

I was watching out the window this morning. OH has made a sparrow house which sits on the fence, needless to say the sparrows prefer to roost in the pyracanthus bush. However I watched a little blue tit pop into the sparrow house through one of the holes. Wonder if he/she was sizing it up for spring?

13 days without a post, no birds in your garden?

We have had quite a few in the past week or so including blue, coal and great tits, robin, black cap, starlings, sparrows, greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, wren, collard doves, wood pigeons, magpie, crow, blackbirds.

Anyone seen Jude lately?

Yes our feeder's been busy too. Saw a greater spotted woodpecker there in beween all the smaller birds.

They were joined by blackbird, coal tit, greenfinches, collard dove, wood pigeons

Hard frost here today, the goldfinches and great and blue tits have been much in evidence so far,

Very frosty this morning - the garden looks beautiful, but it can't be brilliant for the wildlife.

My next door neighbour was busy with the shotgun yesterday.I wonder it it was pheasants he was after? My poor dog was going crazy with the bangs.

mmm!!

Had a wren in the garden this morning, the usual goldfinches, sparrows and starlings and a coal tit, oh yes and the resident collard dove.

Well no Ann, point taken, but the poor things don't get a lot of choice. They get hooshed there by the beaters.

Well if you were a pheasant would you go near a shoot Lol!!!!

We had 4 goldfinches on the niger seed this morning and have just braved the rain to go and buy them some more seed. Also have a couple of greenfinches around still, robin, blackbird, starlings and sparrows. Nothing more exotic though.

Me again. Went for a lovely walk on the downs yesterday afternoon. About 3 hours and it didn't rain on us! Good job as one stretch was very muddy and heavy going so that might have been a bit miserable - as i was it didn't last for long and it gave our boots a test which they passed thankfully. Didn't see so many pheasants on the hill we headed to as there were shoots going on nearby. But we did see the usual buzzards and we saw some yellowhammers too.

Back home we saw a kestrel in our now completely bare apple tree again. This time OH saw it too. Yesterday he also saw a goldfinch which we've never spotted here before - I didn't see that though.

OH says he was just watching a couple of squirrels and a cock pheasant trying to get pole position at the ground feeder. The squirrels were running at the feeder to try to scare the pheasant, but the pheasant just jumped up in the air and tried to land on the squirrels.

We also had 3 robins around this morning. Two of them were having a bust up about their territory, meanwhile number 3 nonchalantly headed straight for the mealworm tray.

Good to hear from you again Tec. I was just beginning to wonder if you were OK. Now you may just have to be firm with old Ianto and tell him it's better to look girly than get all his joints cold and wet on a bad day. Being as it's your old wax jacket it's not going to be pink is it?

I'll have to have a listen out for the owls, I don't remember hearing them lately either.

Never mind about being repetitive Jane - I hadn't heard about your moorhens before. Or if I did my memory's failing too.

From time to time lately I'm seeing a wren, but because they're so small it's usually only when I have time to stay at the window for a while so I don't really know how often it's about.

Hopefully we've got a quieter weekend than recently so I may have time to see better what's about.

me deleted - posted twice,
Tec

Weather much better today in my patch of North Wales. Sunshine, though we did have hailstones earlier.
The birds are hungry, and I expect will get hungrier with colder weather forecast for the weekend, even snow on high ground.
I am disturbed to hear about the illness affecting the finches in some areas. We seem to have a good number of chaffinches around, though far outnumbered by the sparrows, whereas it used to be 50/50. A trio of greenfinches visit daily, but no goldfinches so far. Pleased to see the blackbirds are back regularly, one female has no tail. Bluetits, doves, dunnnock, and the robin are here daily. This morning I spotted the heron looking for breakfast among the rockpools on the beach - I wonder what he finds there? The oystercatchers were not there today, but there were three cormerants perched on a rock just off shore.
The owls seem to have disappeared, or just gone quiet.

Yanto continues to blame me personally for recent bad weather, but is happy to take me for a walk daily. Now that he is getting on in years, OH has suggested making him a coat out of my old wax jacket. He may, or may not, appreciate it, and may object to being made to look like a woos in front of other village dogs.....we'll see.

Regards to everyone, I read your posts with interest.

Tec

I have just realised I think I have told the story of the Moorhens before on here.
I do apologise if I am repeating myself .It's my age lol