The Angry Birds Are Back!

It's been really nice to see some Greenfinches back in my neighbour's garden for the first time in many years. They've suffered a national decline due to disease but seem to be making a bit of a recovery this year as others have reported them too.

Greenfinch populations have plummeted by roughly 67% since the mid-2000s. This drastic decline is primarily driven by trichomonosis, a severe parasitic disease spread at contaminated garden bird feeders, which bumped the species to the UK Red List. This means they are under most threat of further population decline.

The advice is not to put out seeds and peanuts in feeders from May to October when the disease transmission peaks. Most birds, specially young ones, should be eating insects and berries during this time. And clean your feeders and tables regularly using a 5% bleach solution washing water containers and bird baths daily if possible.

If you're wondering about the title of this post, I've always thought that the Angry Birds computer game used Greenfinches as the model for their characters!

An Unbelievable Garden Tick

I've been digging a lot in my garden recently to make way for building a low retaining wall. Most of the garden is underlain with solid clay and so drainage is a problem as there's nowhere for the water to escape. Hence I've had quite a lot of standing water in some parts and this has attracted what for me is a most unusual bird to see in my garden - a beautiful Grey Wagtail. I really couldn't believe it when I first glimpsed out of the corner of my eye and so I was very pleased when I got a better look.

In fact, the first time I saw it through my patio windows there were in fact two birds, but they were very skittish an unapproachable and flew off as I got near the window. After this first viewing I didn't think I'd see them again, but in fact one bird did return on several occasions over the following few days. It never stayed very long and I couldn't get near it but I did at least manage this photograph today.

Grey Wagtails have a slate grey back and lemon breast and under-tail and a long tail. They feed on flies, insects and invertebrates along water courses and it looks as if my puddle of water was briefly a potential food source.

Unfortunately the water has now dried up completely and so I doubt if they'll return again. But it was great while it lasted and an incredible garden tick for me here in Tyldesley.

This week in My Garden

I've decided to start a new occasional feature of this blog to summarise the birds and other wildlife that I've seen in or from my Tyldesley garden during the week. So to kick it off, here's this week's list:

• Sparrowhawk - a male bird sitting on my garden fence was the main highlight of the week
• Bullfinch - a male and female pair and another highlight as they are rarely seen around here
• Coal Tit - a pair, but more usually just one
• Long-tailed Tit - a very regular pair on the fat ball feeders
• Blue Tit - pair, but unfortunately not using my nestbox this year
• Coal Tit - a pair but not as often as I might expect
• Chaffinch - a male and female pair
• Greenfinch - a fairly regular male and female pair
• Dunnock - usually just one
• Robin - a single, andnot as often as in the past
• Blackbird - a very regular pair nesting close by, but not sure where
• House Sparrow - lots of male and female regulars, nesting in a neighbour's eaves
• Starlings - nesting in the corner of my roof
• Collared Dove - a regular pair
• Wood Pigeon - a regular pair, and often other singles

I've also seen a Grey Heron on a neighbour's roof, Carrion Crow and various Gulls either over or from my garden.

Another Sparrowhawk in my Garden

First Sight of the Sparrowhawk

A Bit Closer

It's funny, but once you start looking it's amazing what you actually can see in your own 'back yard'. I'd never imagined that I'd ever get a bird of prey in my suburban garden here in Tyldesley.  But then earlier this year I saw my first Sparrowhawk as I posted here.  And today I saw another, this time a lot less bedraggled from the weather and looking very fine indeed.

Turning Around

One thing I've learnt over the last three years is that with birds, you must take your shots while you can - look away for an instant and they can be gone.  And so, to get these photos, I just shot them through the kitchen and later the patio windows, muck and all!  If I'd even attempted to open the windows the bird would have flown, and there was no hope of going outside into the back garden.

Showing An Interest

I had actually suspected that there was a bird of prey around, because last week I found a large number of Wood Pigeon feathers scattered across my back lawn.  Our two cats are always very interested in any birds in the garden, and Wood Pigeons in particular, but I don't think they'd manage to catch one - I also couldn't find any remains of a body, which is what usually happens when they do manage to catch a bird.  They play around with it for a while and carry it from place to place, before getting bored with the fact that it's not moving any more. A sad fact of the cycle of life I'm afraid.

A Bit Ruffled

So in this case I suspected that a Sparrowhawk had caught it, and presumably taken it away to eat. Unfortunately, like so many garden feeding stations, our feeders seem to have become a Sparrowhawk feeding station too.  This bird was sat on the fence overlooking the feeders in exactly the same place as previously, and it may have even been the same indivivual.  The largest group of feathers was almost directly below the feeders, and so my guess is that the Sparrowhawk grabbed the Wood Pigeon whilst it was on the feeding table, killed it and then flew off with it leaving only the feathers scattered across the grass.

A Closer View

Of course I didn't see any of this so it all just supposition, but I'm fairly confident that's what happened here.  So there you have it, a few male Sparrowhawk shots taken through mucky glass, and that said, I'm quite pleased with them.

A Bee Flies Past

Post-Easter Eggs

Whilst out in the garden last weekend I found an egg on my back lawn.  It had a small hole in it and the yoke could just be seen.  At first I thought our cat's might have raided a nest because they're winning 3-0 against the birds this year, with a further two of the ones they've caught surviving at least for a while after I released them. But I'm not sure that cats are interested in birds' eggs and so I now think a Magpie or a Crow might have dropped it whilst flying over the garden.









Then a day or so later my wife Sarah was giving the grass it's first cut of the year (she wanted to, honestly!) and she found another egg, this time completely intact. She was certain it wasn't there when she started, although the grass was a little long in places, and so we presumed it had fallen out of the sky, favouring the Magpie or Crow scenario.


At around 4cm long, the eggs are larger than most common eggs I've found in and around my garden over the years, and they are also a smooth featureless white colour. They might not even be both from the same bird as the broken one on the left is a little longer and a bit more pointed at the ends than the one on the right, which is ever so slightly pinker in colour.

My best guess at the moment is that they belong to a Wood Pigeon, or perhaps a Collared Dove but I'm open to suggestions for correctly identifying them.

If you've any ideas to which bird these eggs belong and how they ended up on our back lawn, we'd be interested in hearing from you - just click on 'comments' below this post and, after writing your message, use the 'Anonymous' identity to log it for speed if you like.

Leucistic Blackbird

Just as I was trying out my new Manfrotto monopod and tilt head, a bargain bought for £23 off e-Bay, which arrived this morning, another leucistic blackbird appeared in my back garden. It's not Luke, the bird I saw a few times last year, as this bird has a lot more white covering the tops of its wings as well as it's head. This is the second such bird I've seen this week in two different locations.

I was trying to get some shots of a few Long-tailed Tits and Great Tits that were passing through my feeders when the leucistic bird just appeared out of nowhere.  It didn't stay for long but I managed a couple of better shots than I have of Luke - however the day was quite dull and overcast and so they're not great.

Now I'm going to have to think of another name!  How about Snowy?

Today in My Garden

You lookin' at  me?

Today I saw the following birds in and around my back garden in Tyldesley, Wigan:

• Blue Tits (obviously!)
• A Coal Tit
• Greenfinches
• Goldfinches
• House Sparrows
• A Blackbird
• Collared Doves
• Woodpigeons
• A Magpie
• Starlings
• A Great Tit
• Swifts (over)
• Black-headed Gulls (over)

Here are some pictures I took from my garden today and a couple from last week - the light was very poor today and so the pictures are a little grainy:

Greenfinch at the top of a neighbour's tree

Goldfinches on my feeder



Female house sparrow on my feeder



A very shy Coal Tit



A noisy Starling



Swift over my garden



Swift silhouette

A frog in a tree, but not a Tree Frog though

Here's the Dandelion, now where's the Burdock?

My Garden

I recently decided to make an open bird table for my garden similar in size to the ones in the Bunting Hide at Pennington Flash and today I finally got round to doing it.  I'd got some metal legs off a broken school chair that was being thrown out and I found a suitable board with a lip around it from an old wardrobe shelf in my garage.  All I had to do was drill some holes to attach the board to the legs and hey presto, an instant bird table - it didn't take too long.

When I'd finished I positioned the table in amongst some vegetation whilst still being in view of my back window.  I put a variety of bird food and seeds out on the table including sunflower hearts and kernels, peanuts, tangerine segments (don't know if birds will eat those), hazel nuts and mealworms.  As soon as I'd done that my pesky cats got interested and even started eating the mealworms.  It was then that I realised that the table was a little low and the cats could easily get on it - ah well, I'll have to see how it goes.

Just after I'd finished and was clearing up, my sunflower seed feeder was visited by six Goldfinches, which is a record for my garden.  Firstly, Goldfinches don't usually stop off in my garden although they do fly over and into neighbours gardens fairly often in the spring and summer.  And secondly, I've never had more than two at once when they have been on rare occasions in the past.

My wife Sarah and I spent quite a while looking them through binoculars, and it was only when they seemed to be stopping for a while that I decided to try and take some pictures.  Of course, as soon as I got my camera out they were off and I only managed to get a few blurry pictures of a group of four of them. Later a single bird did return for  a brief visit and I got some slightly better shots but they were still far from perfect. Nevertheless it was a pleasing sighting.

Other birds in and around my garden today included:

• Blackbird
• Blue Tit
• Great Tit
• House Sparrow
• Robin
• Collared Dove
• Wood Pigeon
• Starling
• Gulls (over)

Can't wait to see what might be on the bird table tomorrow - I'm keeping my cats indoors for the whole morning.

Saturday Morning in My Back Garden

One day last week I'd seen a tiny little Wren flittng around two potted christmas trees that I keep in my back garden. However as it was a workday I couldn't watch it for long and so I decided to have another look for it today. I got up at 6:15am and waited for the dawn to break on a cloudless sky.

The birdlife slowly began to appear as the sun rose from behind the houses and over the course of a couple of hours I saw the following birds in or around my back garden:

• Robin
• Dunnock
• House Sparrow
• Blue Tit
• Coal Tit
• Blackbird
• Wood Pigeon
• Starling
• Collared Dove
• Magpie
• Jay

And then I heard the distinctive sound of geese way up high in the sky.  I looked up and saw my first skein of 50+ geese flying in a fantastic V shape eastwards.  The sunlight made them all look slightly golden but I'm pretty sure they were Pink-footed Geese.

So the Jay and the geese were the two highlights of an interesting mornings birdwatching from the comfort of my patio windows, but I never did get to see the little wren.

Jay - A First For My Garden !

Today I saw a Jay in my garden for the first time ever.  I only had time for a brief glimpse (no oak trees or acorns here)  but it was unmistakable - a largish bird with a big head and distinctive profile.

As it flew off I clearly saw the brownish back, black tail with a white rump and iridescent blue wing edges that make it easy to identify. There was no chance of getting my camera in time so I just had to make do with a visual sighting.  I do hope it comes back sometime soon.

My Back Garden

Tonight a flock of around eight to ten tits arrived in my back garden making a lot of noise.  They were mainly Long Tailed tits but I'm sure there was a Great Tit and perhaps a Coal Tit in with them.  I only managed to get a half decent photo of one of them however.

Long Tailed Tit in my back garden Hawthorne bush

My Back Garden

Lots of Goldfinch and a woodpigeon on a neighbours newly chopped tree.  Pictures to follow...