Garden Birds II, April 2024

Garden Birds II, April 2024

When my brother and I were young, a highlight of school holidays was a visit to Uncle Fred, our great-uncle on my mother’s side, a retired engineer who was married to her mother’s sister.  He lived, alone after her death, in a large house in Pangbourne on the Thames (he later moved to Felpham on the south coast, a scene of further happy holidays), which seemed to us a palace.  The garden was large, with a patch of woodland to explore and a tennis court.  I think Fred’s wife’s name was Dora, I am not sure (she had already suffered a major stroke when we first visited, something I was too young to understand or begin to deal with), but I can picture with total clarity a glass-fronted cabinet, which we were barely allowed even to approach, filled with souvenirs from his travels, including a doll of a Spanish dancer in a black and yellow ruffled dress.  My favourite place was the conservatory, which contained old-fashioned wicker furniture, plants, gardening tools.  I loved the slightly musty smell of it, the soft light and the heady warmth.  I have wanted something like it ever since.  Finally, over the last few weeks, I have reached an approximation of it.  It is sold as a summerhouse but is really just a glorified shed, but it does have ceiling to floor windows at the front and to one side, and I am loving the light and warmth again and the ability to feel as though I am outside whilst remaining dry and toasty even in the wind and rain.  The first attempt was not a success – the quality of materials delivered was a bad joke, nothing was square, no two pieces supposed to be identical and therefore line up actually did and I had not got far before I realised that the whole thing would leak like the proverbial sieve.  This is just one example of the shortcomings of the workmanship and quality control:

The company I bought it from arranged a quick collection and refund without a murmur of a quibble.  No doubt this was not a first for them, which begs the question of why they bother sending out such an utterly shoddy product, what with all their expense of delivery and collection. 

The second version came from Power Sheds and although it took me several days to assemble, with help from my son (thank you Zak), the difference was night and day.  I cannot really fault it.  I am not a natural at such things and so there are a few bits of more or less invisible bodging and I have added some extra door furniture for convenience, but with green carpet tiles, electric power, heat, shelving and a desk and chair, it has already become a delightful refuge.  And a fantastic place from which to watch birds – they do not know I am there, not even the Jackdaws.  Our house and garden are separated by a track so there has never been any simple looking out of the window.

My first morning in the ‘summerhouse’ was spent doing little else.  To my astonishment, fourteen different species visited, fifteen if you include the Red Kite soaring overhead.  Many of them I had not seen or noticed in the garden before and one I had never seen at all.

Expected visitors were House Sparrows (four, two male and two female), a Robin, a male and female Blackbird, a gang of Jackdaws, two Wood Pigeons shortly followed by a pair of Collared Doves (I actually shouted out I was so happy to see them again, which would not have gone down well if I had been in a hide), the Dunnocks I saw a little earlier in the year, a Magpie and two Great Tits (no Coal Tits yet this year).  Seen just once or twice before by me here last year but now in a group of three – Greenfinches, perhaps my favourite of the day.  The colouring of those birds.  A male and female Chaffinch were a welcome addition.  Then, something from the corner of my eye.  What was that flash of fire?  Goldfinches, those stunningly, vividly pretty creatures.. 

There were some interesting interactions.  One of the Greenfinches saw off a house sparrow approaching the feeder.  To my surprise, a Jackdaw (they always seem so badass with their dagger beaks) deferred to one of the plump Wood Pigeons and waited his turn at the feeder on the ground.  Our cats are scared of the Wood Pigeons too.  On another morning I witnessed an aerial territorial dispute (which began on the ground) between two male blackbirds – it was a display of strength without any actual physical contact.

Then … something different.  I had no idea who it might be.  Too big for a sparrow, mottled brown plumage, a distinctive black-and-white head, mostly black, and a white breast.  It took a minute but eventually the bird guides left no doubt but that it was a Reed Bunting.  Not, as far as I know, generally thought of as a garden bird, but an inhabitant of wetlands.  I was ridiculously excited. 

Otherwise, no great surprises overall then, except to me.  Of the fourteen, nine are in the top ten from the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch – Long-tailed Tits are in tenth place, which I have never seen here.  Three of the others are in the top fifteen, the Greenfinch coming in at eighteen.  For context, the House Sparrow, number one in the charts, in spite of being Red Listed, has a mean number of sightings of 4, the Greenfinch 0.31.  The Reed Bunting though is way down the list with a mean of zero.  Heart-warmingly, 9.7 million birds were counted during the 2024 watch with over 610,000 people taking part.

Photos below with a few observations which will probably be trite to an expert, but I make them anyway. I don’t at all mind admitting that I originally misidentified the female greenfinch, now corrected. Or perhaps I was just seeing if you were paying attention at the back.

Dunnock

Male Chaffinch, which I saw casually and easily displace a Great Tit from the feeder.

Female Greenfinch

Greenfinches and Goldfinch

Male Greenfinch

Greenfinches

Collared Dove

Male Blackbird

Reed Bunting

Adult Goldfinch

Wood Pigeons and the Wood Pigeon / Jackdaw face-off described above. I have joked with family and other volunteers that the next time I am thinking about collecting one for HART it will only be once he or she has have told his or her friends to stop shitting all over my car.

Male Chaffinch

Jackdaw – a much better picture than I have previously managed. I often notice a single bird flying over when I am filling the feeders. Just minutes later they all turn up. I wonder how they share the information. It implies some pretty sophisticated communication.

Magpie. Astonishingly loud.

Female Blackbird

Blue Tit. I love this picture, there is something about it…

Greenfinch, showing those amazing colours at their best

Female Chaffinch (I think)

Male Chaffinch

This Robin seemed to have a particularly long beak. Perhaps only in my imagination, but it is known that some garden birds are evolving longer beaks – those that have them are better equipped to take advantage of the feeders and so more likely to survive, reproduce and pass on that genetic variant.

Great Tit. Not the greatest picture, but I had no idea they could so dextrously hold a peanut with their feet and eat it a little at a time.

Male House Sparrow