New Garden Visitor Today

[choux]

Magnificent peach colour too :)

http://www.arkive.org/lesser-kestrel/falco-naumanni/

[paddywak]

I'm quite jealous all we ever get is a couple of scrawny feral pigeons and the odd Blackbird.

[choux]

Bless you paddy, we get those too.

When we came back from shopping this morning a solitary buzzard was circling above the house. We usually see them in pairs.

[paddywak]

Trish gets quite upset because no matter what we try we never get anything special.The last time we had anything different was a couple of Bull finches when the cherries were ripening,unfortunately we had our second different visitor when Mr Sparrow Hawk arrived for dinner which was the end of one finch and the other departed to safer climes.

[Tilly2]

That's such a shame paddy Bullfinches are quite rare now, I believe.

[fbg40]

Fabulous. We get a sparrowhawk on our fence occasionally but nothing as beautiful as a Kestrel.
FBG40

[Tilly2]

How lovely for you to have a kestrel in your garden, choux. We have one occasionally but the Sparrowhawk is the most frequent visitor.

[gness]

Oh what bliss, Choux.....I still don't get as many different birds living on the edge of a small town as I did when I was in the middle of Kettering but I do have daily views of Red Kites and Buzzards.....x

[Prudie]

I can't remember the last time I saw a Bullfinch. You are lucky choux, they are a rare visitor.

[Tilly2]

The kites are moving this way, Gness. We saw two the other day. Fabulous.

[cupid04]

We get a lot less varieties than we did thirty odd years ago.
We never see song thrushes now, or greenfinches, wagtails etc
All we get now is pigeons, collared doves, starlings, sparrows, blackbirds and robins.

[gness]

Great news, Tilly......I know some folk have been asked to stop feeding them because they weren't spreading out enough to search for food as their numbers increase....

Wonderful to watch....x

[paddywak]

At one time we used to get quite a few Bullfinches in the garden, especially when the cherries were ripe.If you left a gap in the netting they'd strip the tree in no time,I quite miss them now they never come around there antics trying to get to the fruit always amusing.

[frugalfred]

Greenfinch numbers have been affected by a devastating disease, cupid. Five years ago, greenfinches were the most numerous visitors to the peanuts. One seen last year. Bullfinch - one seen this year attacking the buds on my Japanese cherry. I have 5 goldfinches which visit daily for Niger seed.

[Captain2]

We had a pair of bullfinches for a week, some couple of weeks ago. Haven't seen them recently so perhaps they were just passing through.
We have alovely mixture of the tit family (blue, great, coal, long tail) charge in about three or four times a day, which is lovely to watch.
Down the lane we apparently have a woodpecker, haven't seen it yet but have certainly heard it.

[Tilly2]

I didn't know that about the greenfinches, fred. I wondered where the were.

[cupid04]

we did used to get lots of greenfinches. They seemed to favour sunflower seeds. It's a shame about the decline of certain birds. Even sparrows have greatly declined and blue tits.

[Tilly2]

We could do our own Garden Birdwatch on here.

[frugalfred]

This Winter, a spotted woodpecker has stripped the bark from a dead branch on one of my trees, seeking insects.

[Prudie]

It's interesting how we all get different regular birds. I see goldfinches and wagtails every day however I did not see one redwing or fieldfare this winter, quite unusual.

[frugalfred]

Tilly: http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw/gardens-wildlife/garden-birds/disease/trichomonosis