Wildlife in our garden with pics

[JetSet]

Birds actually. One of the great things about living in the country is the great variety of birds we get in our garden. Here are a few I took this morning.

 

 

A Goldfinch, Siskin and Greenfinch.

 

 

A Nuthatch, fairly common around here.

 

 

Another view of the Siskin and its mate.

 

 

A pair of Bullfinches, another Goldfinch and what I believe to be a Redpoll

 

 

Another view of the Redpoll

 

 

A Chaffinch. They don't usually go to the feeders as they normally feed off the ground.

 

 

And finally no garden is complete without one of these. There are many other birds we see at our feeders or elsewhere in the garden, this is just photos I took over 10 minutes.

 

Pete

[Tricky-Ricky]

Nice! we like to watch the birds, we have multiple feeders, and we are almost rural, small village and are starting to get some of the birds we want to encourage,Greenfinch, Siskin, don't often see the Goldfinches, got a pair of resident wrens, love those birds, bold big voice for such a small bird, we also occasionally get a Goldcrest, also get a pair of Long tailed Tits that come and tap on the patio doors

for attention, the only drawback is the dam woodies, buggers crap everywhere.

[Payco]

Great photos.We have a pair of gold finches,simply stunning little birds who love niger seed.Have a woodpecker too amongst many others.Thanks for sharing. Niger seed and patience and build it and they will come (as Kevin Costner once said).

Edited April 15, 2016 by Payco

[Richf]

I filled all the bird feeders yesterday morning , by teatime they had all been trashed by the squirrels and were empty

[Ken]

Great photo's Pete

[JetSet]

I filled all the bird feeders yesterday morning , by teatime they had all been trashed by the squirrels and were empty

 

Yeah, we used to have that problem. We installed a squirrel baffle on one of the feeders and smeared vaseline on the other one. The baffle worked but the vaseline was only a partial success. Next we trimmed back the bushes so they couldn't leap onto the feeders and more importantly leap off to escape the cats . Now we just get the odd squirrel and they eat what the birds have dropped (which is quite a lot). I also stopped putting bread and other scraps in the garden as the cats were catching a few birds mainly Blackbirds and Thrushes, instead I put it an open space about 50 yards away, this also keeps The Crows, Magpies, Jays and Jackdaws out of the garden.

 

Pete

[JetSet]

Nice! we like to watch the birds, we have multiple feeders, and we are almost rural, small village and are starting to get some of the birds we want to encourage,Greenfinch, Siskin, don't often see the Goldfinches, got a pair of resident wrens, love those birds, bold big voice for such a small bird, we also occasionally get a Goldcrest, also get a pair of Long tailed Tits that come and tap on the patio doors

for attention, the only drawback is the dam woodies, buggers crap everywhere.

 

Sunflower Hearts are what attract Goldfinches and Bullfinches. Although I've been feeding the birds since I moved in here years ago I'd never seen a Goldfinch or Bullfinch at the feeders, I'd seen them in the lane so knew they were about. I had tried Sunflower Hearts to attract them before but it didn't work probably because I put them on top of a bird table. The very day we filled our feeders up with Sunflower Hearts they arrived...hard to believe but true. We have loads of Goldcrests but they don't come to the feeders, preferring to feed in the conifers and Long Tailed Tits only visit us now and again, usually a flock of about 20 arrive and leave after 10 minutes.

 

Pete

[DoogyRev]

Awesome Its great to see some of the lesser seen birds again. Since we moved to a more rural location we get less wildlife, but thats prob because the garden is a lot smaller. I will try to get some pics of the BluJays and if I am lucky and stay up all night the local motley crew of Trash Panda's

 

But this is what I managed to capture in our old garden, which was in the middle of a town. Its was a rented house on a 7 acre plot.

 

This was the first sighting we captured of a Coyote.

 

 

This is a Barred Olw

 

 

The little ones got brave and wanted to play in the sunshine . .

 

 

 

But under the watchful eyes of Mum and Dad

 

 

And these are I think my best photos of the little humming birds. He is sitting on a wire coat hanger and I was about 4ft away with my telephoto lens.

 

 

 

[ZEUS]

Fantastic pictures, we have to buy bird food 30kg at a time now because we have so many birds coming in. We even have 6 pheasants that come in everyday from the surrounding farmland. Best thing about living in the countryside is all the wildlife, I never get tired of watching it.

[Shenley]

A poor quality phone piccy of this mornings action in our back garden.

A local farm yard cat trying it on.

 

 

It ended well for the pheasant.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Shenley

[DoogyRev]

I think your Farm cat could do with some lessons from the Coyotes. They are very sneaky and sly as this news story shows . . .

 

 

"A Gibsons family is mourning the loss of their beloved dog after it was snatched away by a coyote.

Alainah Russell said she spotted a coyote in front of her mother’s shop, Carola’s Quilt Shop, on Friday morning, so she went out to scare it away. When she got back into the shop, she realized her nine-year-old toy poodle Nicky was gone.

“And I went out to the parking lot looking for him, and when I went back and looked toward the shop, I saw a second coyote come out the front door with Nicky in its mouth,†she said.

Russell said the coyote ran onto the road, and her father and passersby ran after it, but it was just too quick for them.

“It was terrible,†she said. “It was really heartwrenching, and there was nothing we could do.â€

Russell believes one coyote lured her outside while another went through the back door.

She and her family have been living near a wooded area for 16 years, but they never saw coyotes until this year, she said.

She describes the animals as scrawny, small and ill-looking.

Clint Davy with Gibsons Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre says coyotes are a common threat in the region, but they almost never approach people.

He says he found the brazenness of the attack surprising, and that it should remind owners they need to protect pets from predators like coyotes."

[350zedd]

Pete & Doogy, you've inspired me to go out and take some shots!

 

Unfortunately, most of the wildlife is delivered to the back door by one of our cats. This week, a blue tit and today a racing pigeon.

The retriever commandeered the pigeon and eat it, so no tea for her tonight.

[JetSet]

Fantastic pictures, we have to buy bird food 30kg at a time now because we have so many birds coming in. We even have 6 pheasants that come in everyday from the surrounding farmland. Best thing about living in the countryside is all the wildlife, I never get tired of watching it.

B

 

I spend about £40 a month. 2 large bags of sunflower hearts, 1 medium sized bag of peanuts and a couple of small bags of niger seed. Sometimes I replace the sunflower hearts with black sunflower seeds. We get the odd pheasant too, cats seem to ignore them but one day several years ago we found a dead fully grown male one in our kitchen. Back door was closed so a cat must have dragged it in through the cat flap

 

Pete

[JetSet]

I think your Farm cat could do with some lessons from the Coyotes. They are very sneaky and sly as this news story shows . . .

 

Yeah, they kill lots of pet dogs, cats and even foxes. Americans are usually excellent at making species extinct or extremely rare but despite declaring war on the coyote in the 19th century the numbers have increased several fold. Only a wolf, bear, cougar or the fearsome wolverine prey on coyotes but they generally don't overlap their enemies territory.

 

Pete

[Tricky-Ricky]

Yes what with the bird feeders and a pond full of Koi and other fish, we must spend about £30-40 a month on food for them, never realised just how much those little buggers can get through

Apart form lots of suicidal pigeons we also get lots of Pheasants (English roadrunner) and Partridges that I spend half my time trying to avoid in the car, and the rest of the time just hoping that a Muntjac deer doesn't suddenly decide to jump in the road, and while I hate to kill any animal unnecessarily, they don't half make a mess of the front of the car, built like small tank.

[Justthejedi]

Great photo's guys, thanks for sharing. We get blue tits nesting in our bird house every year.

[saint]

This makes me sad, I don't have a garden! Then again the only wildlife in Crewe is the indigenous Greasy Haired tit. Love the pics, hope the birds dont dive bomb your cars

[sipar69]

Great pictures folks.

[ChrisB]

Cats hiding in bushes.. not unusual

 

 

..except it's bushes up our tree..

 

 

[Mopedmark]

Great photos everyone

[sipar69]

Cats hiding in bushes.. not unusual

 

 

..except it's bushes up our tree..

 

 

 

Awww. Did they get down ok?