Feeding the birds

I expect you have seen the latest recommendations from the BTO on feeding garden birds.  The new guidance is to stop feeding seeds and peanuts from today to the end of October in the hope of reducing transmission of trichomonosis which has caused declines in populations of chaffinches and greenfinches.

The problem is widespread but seems a bit less up here compared with farther south.  This graph from the BTO Garden BirdWatch shows the reporting rate for greenfinches in the North East.

Compare that with the South East.

These are similar data for chaffinches.

I don't remember ever seeing a finch on the peanut feeder so I think I'll continue with peanuts until they are all used up and see what happens.  That will be a relief to the woodpeckers who will be here with their fledglings in June.

I reckon I only see about one sick finch a year here.  One effect of stopping feeding is that all the finches will disappear so recording of both healthy and sick finches will presumably plummet but I expect the BTO experts have thought about that.  I'll be disappointed not to see the birds but I guess it is all for the greater good.

At the moment I still have lots of siskins, redpolls, bullfinches, greenfinches and chaffinches outside the kitchen window.  They are going to be very disappointed.

My prize visitor, a brambling, was only here for a week before setting off home to Scandinavia about three weeks ago.

Assuming most people comply with the advice it's going to be interesting to see what happens, both here and nationally.  I expect I'll be getting complaints from the local clean-up squad as well.

Young finches

The garden has been busy with birds all summer but, apart from the sparrowhawk, they have been missing from the blog recently, mostly displaced by foxes, otters, dragonflies, etc.  In the past couple of weeks there have been lots of very young-looking goldfinches, greenfinches and chaffinches, presumably from second broods.  The first young bullfinches always seem to appear here very late in the season and there are still several youngsters demanding to be fed by their parents.  Most of this activity goes on out of reach of the camera lens but this young bullfinch was patiently sitting in a yew tree, waiting for a parent to bring more food.

The BTO website says that bullfinches have two or three broods a year with first clutches laid as late as 21st July.  With a combined incubation and fledging time of 31 days this would fit in with these newly appearing birds.

End of year favourites - Aves (garden)

Some photos from the garden this year, beginning with last winter's sparrowhawk and finishing with the current sparrowhawk but otherwise in no particular order.

Seven winter finches

I have had a few complaints - mainly from the small birds who turn up in the garden every day hoping to have their photos taken but who say they never feature on this blog.  They think there are far too many squirrel, badger and deer pictures and are completely unimpressed by all the sparrowhawk photos.  So here are some finch photos from this week.

The most numerous finch in the garden is the goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) with dozens visiting every day.

The most constant finch is the chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), here almost all the time.

Also a regular visitor is the greenfinch (Chloris chloris).

And at this time of year I expect to see a pair of bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) every day.

I don't usually take photos on the feeders but the last three birds are rarer winter visitors and feeder photos are all I could manage this week.  I saw a couple of lesser redpolls (Acanthis cabaret) in December but this week they have been regular visitors.  These are males.

The first siskins (Spinus spinus) of the winter came to the feeders last week.  This is a male.

And most exciting of all, a male brambling (Fringilla montifringilla), the first I have seen in the garden for two years.

In the pink

Looking at their finest at this time of year, hoping to impress the ladies.

Sick finches

Oh dear.  Bad news.  Two of the bullfinches in my garden are sick.  They have been sitting around on or near the feeder, fluffed up, lethargic, with their heads held back and with food stuck on their beaks.  The symptoms suggest trichomoniasis, a protozoan infection with Trichomonas gallinae.  I have only seen it here once before, in a greenfinch a year ago.  Other possibilities are infection with Salmonella or Escherichia albertii.

I have reported it to Garden Wildlife Health in which the BTO is a partner.  Their usual advice is to keep the feeders clean (which I do anyway) and to suspend feeding if there are several victims.  The disease has been endemic in British finches for a decade and caused major mortality in greenfinches in 2006/7.  You can download the BTO fact sheet (they call it trichomonosis) here.