Since moving to this house in 2014 I have been recording different species of birds and the most numbers of one species at one time.
(I must add here in parenthesis in our last garden the most amazing event and striking one was the presence of 14 waxwing (Bombycilla garullus)! They were feeding on rotting crab apples in the front garden on Grange Road. It was a year which ornithologist call an eruption! There were around 120 seen in the local area within a 10 mile radius of here).
Some of the birds I have recorded have been flying over but usually I distinguish that from landing in the garden. These include cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), red kite (Milvus milvus) and buzzard (Buteo buteo).
There have been other birds flying over surrounding gardens and the road at the front, but I don’t like to count them as they are technically not in my garden. This has included a pair of Great black backed gulls (Larus marinus), hobby (Falco Subbuteo), swift (Apus apus), swallow (Hirundo rustica), herring gull (Larus argentatus) and black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus).
Two years ago our house was under the route of a local peregrine (Falco peregrinus) which used it to go towards Woking where it was nesting.
The morning of writing this post the garden hosted a new record which was Siskin (Carduelis spinus). They have been seen locally in previous winters. There were 4 females and 3 males which were in and around the feeders. As our garden is around 500 m2 it wasn’t easy to see them well without binoculars. These birds are like little jewels.
As I looked at them I realised this was a new record and added them to my paper record. In doing so I thought other people might like to see what is going on in my garden and compare notes.
So far we have had the following. I have also arranged the first birds seen in order of appearance, apart from towards the end where I realised I had missed a or two from last year! (the numbers following the bird are the largest amount at one time) :
- Blackbird (Turdus merula) 5
- Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 40
- Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) 3
- Great tit (Parus major) 2
- Dunnock (Prunella modularis) 2
- Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) 7
- Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) calling from the neighbours hedge close to our house) 1
- Magpie (Pica pica) 7
- Wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) 7
- Collared dove (Streptopelia decaocta) 10
- Carrion crow (Corvus corone) 5 (2 of which have a number of white wing feathers)
- House sparrow (Passer domesticus) 3 (The neighbours hedge had many more which I couldn’t count
- Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) 1
- Redwing (Turdus illiacus) 10 (Jan/Feb 2018)
- Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) 1
- Robin (Erithacus rubecula) 2
- Jay (Garrulus glandarius) 2
- Red kite (Milvus milvus) 2 (flying over)
- Pied wagtail (Picus viridus)1
- Bullfinch (Pyrhulla pyrhulla) 1 (18/1/2015)
- Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) 1 (female)
- Buzzard (Buteo buteo) 4 (19/09/15)
- Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) 1 (flying low over garden into neighbours Leylandii)
- Long tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) 3 (Jan 2019)
- Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) 1 (09/02/16 – recently have realised that we are in the flight to roost path as we get around 200 going over sunrise and sunset)
- Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) (07/03/17)
- Ring necked parakeet (Psitaculla krameri) 1 (19/11/16)
- Fieldfare (Turdus pilarus) 1 (Jan 2018)
- Grey heron (Ardea cinerea) (1 flying low over garden)
- Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) 1
- House martin (Delichon urbichum) (16/09/18 – 100s flying south over our house in lose groups for about 10 minutes – check out my twitter feed from time to time).
- Siskin (Carduelis spinus) 4 females and 3 females (21/01/19)
I will try and keep you posted regarding any updates.
Occasionally I record moths as well and have posted about this before. As a family we look out for other species too both of flora and fauna and you will hear about that as well when the moment takes me!
Postscript:
I noticed a spelling in an ornithology magazine which made me realise an error. In regards to the waxwing eruption spelling earlier. It should have been irruption. Irrupt means to enter suddenly or forcibly, to burst in, to break in. Irrupt also describes an animal or plant population suddenly increasing in numbers in a particular region.