Christmas Crackers

I hope all our followers and Garden Bird Surveyors have a great, bird filled Christmas and New Year.

19 plus Goldfinches on Nyjer feeder ( Ita Martin)

Not everybody might be as lucky as Ita Martin who captured this wonderful picture of Goldfinches back in September in her County Dublin garden.. Note the number of young birds taking to the feeder.

Down Wicklow way we still have the Great Spotted Woodpecker coming to the peanut feeder: it continues to be very shy, but if you don't move around inside, it will spend a good five minutes on the feeder, unbroken, before towering away high into the trees and back to the oak forest.  The BTO reckon that the decline in Starlings means less competition for nest holes, benefitting Woodpeckers and supplementary feeding also increases their survival through winter.. What a great recent addition to our avifauna, in any 

case!

GSW : currently a daily visitor (OOS)

Other notable visitors are the hordes of Coal Tits: just as well we have Pheasants to hoover up the spoil below the seed feeder.

Male Pheasant cleans up! (OOS)

Great Spotted Start to GBS

Female Great spotted Woodpecker ( c. OOS)

Last weekend, we fulfilled an ambition of 3 or 4 years: a garden visit from a woodpecker finally happened: Discovered on Saturday morning first thing, bleary eyed,  I watched it on the peanut feeder.  However the visit was fleeting as I reached for the camera downstairs it took off back across the garden, into a high Sycamore and on to the adjacent Birch wood.

The woodpeckers appearance was followed 15 minutes later by a buzz around the feeder by a Sparrowhawk: I hope that doesn't end in grief! 

All was well though and I managed to get a few photos around lunchtime and it appeared again on Sunday.

Because I leave and return to the garden in darkness, I wont get a chance to record it for the Garden Bird Survey until next Saturday, or so I thought: However my 10 year old daughter rang to confirm not one but 2 woodpeckers this Tuesday morning.  Roll on the weekend!

(C.OOS)