Garden birds August 2019

This year I am keeping a list of birds seen in or from my garden.

August is a month of disappearing Swifts although I sometimes see them over the garden into September. The latest record so far this year has been 27 August. I wonder whether there will be any more over the next few days. If not, it’ll be about 8 months until I can look up from the garden and see the scythe-shaped Swift.

As we end August we are two thirds of the way through the year. There are relatively few evenings to be spent sitting in the garden as the weather gets colder and the evenings draw in.

But August added three species to the year list – and two of them were garden-lifers. I have to apologise for the first species, because I actually recorded it, by ear, back in April but it is only by checking my records that I realised I hadn’t added it to the list. Sorry! That species was Pheasant. The fact that it was added to the list is a testament to the far-carrying and loud nature of its cry. The fact that I didn’t remember it is a testament to how commonplace this non-native species is in and around our countrysde. Slightly spookily two species that I mentioned last month as being seen in August in the past were additions to the garden year list this August too: Peregrine Falcon and Sand Martin. They were seen within a few minutes of each other on the same early August evening just before a massive thunderstorm broke. The Sand Martins, both of them, just flew southwest up the Nene Valley towards Northampton but the Peregine stooped over some gardens a couploe of streets away and then appeared moments later flying back towards the church spire with a bird (Starling?) in its talons. Neither was a garden-lifer though.

Here is the list, so far, for 2019;

1. Robin
2. House Sparrow
3. Jackdaw
4. Blackbird
5. Woodpigeon
6. Starling
7. Black-headed Gull
8. Great Tit
9. Red Kite
10. Carrion Crow
11. Chaffinch
12. Goldfinch
13. Rook
14. Collared Dove
15. Dunnock
16. Wren
17. Long-tailed Tit
18. Blue Tit
19. Common Gull
20. Redwing
21. Fieldfare
22. Reed Bunting
23. Greenfinch
24. Blackcap
25. Song Thrush
26. Herring Gull
27. Lesser Black-backed Gull
28. Buzzard
29. Pied Wagtail
30. Stock Dove
31. Magpie
32. Green Woodpecker
33. Mallard
34. Sparrowhawk
35. Coal Tit
36. Swallow
37. Cormorant
38. Yellowhammer
39. Swift
40. House Martin
41. Kestrel
42. Raven
43. Hobby
44. Peregrine
45. Sand Martin
46. Pheasant

And I asked you to guess what the garden list total (ever) would be by the end of the year – for fun. It started on 56 species and I’ve added four species (Herring Gull, Cormorant, Yallowhammer and Mallard) this year to bring the total so far to 60 species.

So Paul Irving and Mark Hill might (if they are very competitive) want me to stop looking, but others may be willing me to get out there and see and hear more:

• Paul Irving 60 species
• Mark Hill 60 species
• Murray Marr 61 species
• Owen 62 species
• Alan Cranston 64 species
• Nick Bee 64 species
• Darren Riley 65 species

There was no prize for being right! There so often isn’t!

What might September bring? Skylarks are usually October species for the garden – calling birds passing over. A migrant raptor is always possible. I’m surprised I’ve never heard a Meadow Pipit passing over – yet.

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