My garden and other exciting habitats...

Today I upgraded my feeders in my garden, with tree hooks and peanuts and everything. The birds are emptying the feeders about twice a week at the moment, so thought it was worth increasing my tree's food-holding capacity (yes due to tree-related we only have one tree).

(here is where I would have put a photo of my new feeders, but the boy still has my camera, so you'll have to wait until my next post.)

...Since writing this I think next doors cat got one of our collared doves. They're stupid birds, but I quite like them. They try and fail to nest on the skydish next door every year, with great amusement for me. I went and threw a load of water on the cat and chased it away, but I can't find the bird, just loads of feathers. Bastard stupid hybrid cat thing...

On an unrelated but still important note, you should go and sign this. It's a campaign to protect the Chagos Archipelago (one of the world's largest coral atolls) by making it a marine protected area. It's a group of 55 tropical islands owned by the UK, and is all very interesting stuff. Theres some really interesting videos to watch too, so go have a look.

window birding

The best kind of birding in my opinion is from your window. Low effort, but everything you see is always a surprise. You don't really expect much more than a few starlings, a noisy woodpigeon and the odd robin, so I find pretty much anything in my garden to be hugely entertaining.

Take this little guy:


One of those WOODPECKERWOODPECKERWOODPECKER *runs upstairs and scrabbles for camera then dashes to nearest window* moments. They're pretty awesome looking things really, especially when they turn up in unexpected places.

Then this week there was this:


(credits for this go to my mum as I don't get to see our garden in daylight until the weekend...)

Now all I need is a lesser and I have the full compliment of British piciformes (ignoring wrynecks)...