Garden birds in April

This blog has been rather overrun by mammals recently but I haven't given up on bird photography.  April was a good month for birds in the garden, including the arrival of chiffchaffs and blackcaps from Africa.

I saw the male kestrel again very early one morning.  Twice he dived down to the lawn to catch something which I think was probably a worm.  Although their main prey is small mammals, kestrels eat other things including small birds, insects and worms.

A pair of jays are in the garden every day.  They are the prettiest crows and are great opportunists.  This one was standing under the peanut feeder while a woodpecker was feeding, waiting to catch the bits as they fell.

Jackdaws also come down to the feeders and stand underneath.

Jackdaws are more agile than jays and can get onto the feeders themselves.

I also have a woodpecker feeder which has holes filled with suet.

It also attracts other birds.

And you-know-who is still around, keeping them all on their toes.

There were lots of other birds I didn't take photos of - all the usual suspects plus reed bunting and green woodpecker. The only disappointment is that my camera nest box is unoccupied for the first time since it was put up in 2009.  I have modified it slightly to move the camera so that it can see the whole floor and the entrance hole so it would have given good pictures.  Maybe next year.

Winter feeding comes to an end

I have been feeding the birds in my garden all year round for years, probably the main reason why there are so many birds in the garden.  In the feeding station at Gosforth Park Nature Reserve, just over mile from here as the sparrowhawk flies, feeding starts in October and ends at Easter.  Here are a few of the birds there just before feeding stopped for the summer.

The woodpecker's breast feathers are rather discoloured.  Most woodpeckers now look very smart as they approach the breeding season so I think this one has been spending time on a tree which has stained her feathers.

Bird of the week - Nuthatch

This handsome bird seems to live its life upside down - the pose above is quite characteristic.

The nuthatch spends most of its time on the trees head down

 but does occasionally turn "the right way up".

Nuthatch numbers have been increasing and the population has been spreading north.  This is the BTO graph for the whole of the UK.

Nuthatches are birds of broadleaf woodland and seem to prefer western parts of England & Wales, probably because that's where most of the trees are.  They have recently crossed the border into Scotland but have not reached Ireland.

The nuthatch is a relatively common garden bird in England.  This is the BTO Garden Birdwatch graph for England

and for Scotland.

These two maps from the Northumbria Bird Atlas, produced by the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club, confirm that nuthatches are thriving locally.  The first shows the breeding distribution of nuthatches and the second shows the population change between the 1988-92 atlas and the 2007-11 atlas.

The nuthatch is Sitta europea, meaning European nuthatch.  In French it is Sittelle torchepot and in German Kleiber.

Thomas Bewick engraved the nuthatch for A History of British Birds (1797).

He wrote

The nuthatch has a wonderful warbling piping call and a similar song.  Listen to Bill Oddie's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on nuthatch here.

A free lunch

My new woodpecker feeder is also proving popular with a variety of other birds.  I now see a pair of nuthatches and a pair of treecreepers outside the window every day.