Garden list for 4 weeks of Lockdown2 (unimpressive)

Mark 12 Comments

The view from the bathroom window of the ivy on the shed is always worth a look. At this time of year the sinking sun (coming from the right in the image above) catches the top of the ivy in late afternoon and a group of House Sparrows sit in the ivy catching the last rays of the sun before roosting (some in the ivy I think). They don’t sit at the very top of the ivy (I imagine because they would be tempting to a Sparrowhawk hurtling down the garden towards our house if they did) but sit just over the brow of the ivy hill, on the house side. And as the illuminated patch of ivy shrinks, as the sun goes down, the House Sparrows hotch up a bit to stay in the sunny bit and none of them sits in the shadow.

Lockdown2 in November has been a lot drearier than Lockdown1 in March, April, May. Shorter days, wetter weather, little bird song… I can’t quite understand those for whom autumn is their favourite season.

But there are always birds around and the tally reached 32 species, as follows:

Stock Dove

Woodpigeon

Collared Dove

Black-headed Gull

Common Gull

Herring Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Sparrowhawk

Red Kite

Buzzard

Green Woodpecker

Magpie

Jackdaw

Rook

Carrion Crow

Coal Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Skylark

Long-tailed Tit

Wren

Starling

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Redwing

Robin

House Sparrow

Dunnock

Pied Wagtail

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Will there be a Lockdown3?

[registration_form]

12 Replies to “Garden list for 4 weeks of Lockdown2 (unimpressive)”

  1. The ‘mellow fruitfulness’ certainly does not manifest itself very much by the time you get to November!

  2. I love your ivy, Mark – we have a lot of it ourselves, but we don’t have the number of sparrows, unfortunately.

  3. The food in my feeders is just rotting. I fill them up regularly and fondly remember the days when my garden would host flocks of chaffinches and greenfinches numbering in the dozens. Lots of sparrows, starlings and tits of all descriptions!
    Now, nothing.
    Numbers have been dropping for the last decade until I am now just throwing the food away.
    Despite the area around me looking green and pleasant, it is obviously pretty sterile!
    I don’t see that I can do much to improve things considering I feed the birds all year round, have a pond and garden with nature in mind.

    1. Sadly even if you do your bit re making your garden wildlife friendly if the vast majority of your neighbours are sterilising their gardens with decking, gravel or artificial grass it gets harder and harder to get anything in your bit of wild. I still see loads of sparrows wherever there are buildings and rough ground complete with ‘weeds’ and preferably a gravelly footpath where they can get a dust bath and grit, there are no longer even enough traditional type gardens – that at least have soil and plants – in most streets for them now.

  4. During the English lockdown( I’m in Wales) I’ve added one bird to the garden list, otherwise I’ve not been taking note although I rarely go more than 2 km from the house at the moment except to shop. New bird Great White Egret.

      1. Very good bird Mark, I’d seen it ( once two together) several times recently on the river (Severn) but I happened to be ringing in the garden looked out and one was flying down the river. Oddly whilst a this had been happening Little Egret had not been seen here since early March until this week that is when one turned up and my partner, not me, saw 3 species of Heron on one walk with the new dog.
        Pair of Goshawks today with a little bit of display but not the full works.

          1. I know this time last year was when I got the best displays. It will be interesting this year as at least one of the territories has a new male ( his predecessor having been poisoned). There is something very special about Goshawks displaying, for me only beaten by Hen Harrier or Golden Eagle.

  5. In the first rays of the winter sun, as it slowly crept above the horizon, sunbathing Jackdaws used to congregate at the very top of the neighbours’ tall lombardy poplars to bask and chatwhile us mortals were in the shade and the ground was still frosty.
    Unfortunately the trees have gone -too near the house. At 30m that’s not difficult. So we have planted a cutting further away and its reaching for the sky rather satisfactorily.
    Oddities were:
    A Heron on the front lawn, not just round the pond, Now it’s cold and wet and it has the garden to itself.
    On fine days, when we were in the garden, we would hear it craaking away as it flew towards the trees surrounding the garden, as if grumbling to himself that we would be there, then shearing off when he could see us through the trees.
    A woodcock, so autumn is not all bad.

  6. Must be a good day for Great Egret, had one over my house today in Higham Ferrers. First time ever,

Comments are closed.