Handsome new visitor seen this morning on my Nuts...
I will rephrase that .... Handsome new visitor seen this morning on our bird feeder outside the kitchen window

fantastic when you get a new bird around your nuts

A greater spotted woodpecker.....i think. Excellent at pecking your nuts.

"Juvenile" Great Spotted Woodpecker. Nice.

I saw a Norwegian Blue at our bird feeder... beautiful plumage....pining for the fjords

Sparrows used to be ten a penny but not these days apparently, but the last couple of summers down here we’ve seen loads.

South West Claret. wrote:Sparrows used to be ten a penny but not these days apparently, but the last couple of summers down here we’ve seen loads.

We have Tits of all shapes sizes and colours in our Garden this time out Blue, Great, Coal and Long tailed.
Our resident Sparrows are on 2nd hatch and are numbering in the 30's.
Gold finches, Green finches and Siskins.
A couple of Reed Warblers (tend to flock with the sparrows)
A family of Magpies most mornings (I know they aren't everyones favourite but hey its nature its cruel).

Now we have the Woodpecker .....

Evenings we get Spike and his mates at the Hedgehog food...

I'nt Nature Brilliant

CJW wrote:"Juvenile" Great Spotted Woodpecker. Nice.

I was going to say juvenile....but it didn't seem right to have a juvenile pecking your nuts. Probably illegal in fact.

Bosscat wrote:We have Tits of all shapes sizes

What ARE you on Boss? You make it sound like a beach in Ibiza.

AshevilleNCClaret wrote:I saw a Norwegian Blue at our bird feeder... beautiful plumage....pining for the fjords

I believe it has since 'f*ckin snuffed it'.

houseboy wrote:What ARE you on Boss? You make it sound like a beach in Ibiza.

Costa Del Long Preston ... Suns shining, Lawns mowed and my lounger out for an afternoon of Sunshine and Ice Tea

I bet that's great to see Bosscat. Where abouts are you in the country. All I get are starlings, sparrows, magpies and wood pigeons. We use to get gold and green finches, blue tits, robins and wrens but this year none of them. I've tried all the good foods but nothing changes although the good quality fat balls are popular with the starlings.

beddie wrote: tits......fat balls

This thread is getting worse.

Bosscat wrote: Costa Del Long Preston ... Suns shining, Lawns mowed and my lounger out for an afternoon of Sunshine and Ice Tea

Thanks Boss and here I am in an office trying to input data into a database that wants to sleep more than Bosscat on a sunny afternoon (has the taxman taken all your doe and left you with your stately home and all you've got's your sunny afternoon?)

Incidentally, speaking of local birds (now then now then - hush) we have something in 'Bash' that I'm willing bet you lot don't have and it's been around for weeks - a peacock. Been strutting around all over the village and spends a lot of time on our cross the road neighbor's garage roof. It seems to have lost most of it's magnificent tail feathers now, although I am told by some uninformed local fool that they moult, I don't know if this is true or if it's been getting a hard time from the local cats, although it is bigger than most of them.

Rick_Muller wrote:fantastic when you get a new bird around your nuts

You've a good memory then?

houseboy wrote:I believe it has since 'f*ckin snuffed it'.

No...... he's resting....
Did I say beautiful plumage?

AshevilleNCClaret wrote:No...... he's resting....
Did I say beautiful plumage?

The only reason he was sitting on the perch in the 1st place was because he had been NAILED THERE!

Bosscat wrote:The only reason he was sitting on the perch in the 1st place was because he had been NAILED THERE!

Okay I'll wake it up then - wakey wakey Mr Polly Parrot.

It's a shame that pretty much the only Monty Python known in the US is the Holy Grail.

While classic, their flying circus stuff is hilarious.

House and I have done a few different sketches in the past over on the Lancashire Blackburnegraph when it was still a decent place for a chat and a laugh....

Always thought they look like 'toy' birds.
This one pops in often.

This fellow turned up in our garden a month ago.

Was lucky the camera was in the kitchen and managed to grab it and get some pictures.

Amazing bird

So what did the taxman do with your lady Deer?

Ffs cannot get the pic to post.

Is there a size limit??
It’s 3.2 m

dougcollins wrote:So what did the taxman do with your lady Deer?

He left her be hind

This was in our garden the other day not a great pic but I'm not a professional twitcher like BC is it a sparrowhawk?

Steve1956 wrote:This was in our garden the other day not a great pic but I'm not a professional twitcher like BC is it a sparrowhawk?

This our Sparrowhawk Steve so I would say yes

Beautiful bird mate,remember when we were kids and the only wildlife you saw was Starlings and Magpies

Hawk is regular in my garden. Have actually seen it from distance, come in from the fields & swoop in and take a chaffinch.
This is a starling. Didn't see the kill, but heard Hawk cry after. Guess it was a triumphant one. It happened during one of our games last season.
It stayed in the garden with its kill at the bottom of the steps for a couple of hours. Have it on several short videos.

Hawk 1 Starling 0 well played Hawk... I hate Starlings

Steve1956 wrote:Beautiful bird mate,remember when we were kids and the only wildlife you saw was Starlings and Magpies

I am assuming your about 70 BC when I say " When we were kids"

We often see a sparrowhawk in our garden. This one came a few days ago and stayed for over two hours. No other birds were seen during that time.
We have visitors of the non-feathered variety, too -

When I take the dogs out late at night the path round our house is invaded by frogs,loads of em ....they look like dog turds in the dark

Love frogs & toads, Spades!
Until I moved here, no idea toads can climb so well! Seen it scaling an almost 4 ft Drystone wall!


Like our resident Woodmice. Very entertaining.

Heres one of our Woodmice in the birdfeeder m8

CJW wrote:"Juvenile" Great Spotted Woodpecker. Nice.

I suppose the beak gives that away?

Taffy on the wing wrote:I suppose the beak gives that away?

Hi Taffy, no - it's the wholly red crown which is only shown by this year's birds.

Whats the hedge hogg situation like up there ? we spotted two in our garden the other day a large adult and smaller baby.

As bold as brass strolling up the garden path.

South West Claret. wrote:Whats the hedge hogg situation like up there ? we spotted two in our garden the other day a large adult and smaller baby.

As bold as brass strolling up the garden path.

Check out the
http://www.uptheclarets.com/messageboar ... ey#p948681" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I regularly update on our little resodents that come every evening to get their tea we now have 4 regular visitors 2 littlish ones (this years youngsters) and 2 adults..... they all come at different times
Come rain or shine

Female sparrowhawks can be 25% larger than the males. This is the biggest size difference in any species of bird.

Billy Balfour wrote:Female sparrowhawks can be 25% larger than the males. This is the biggest size difference in any species of bird.

Have you seen *****'s Mrs

If you ever see signs of rats or their droppings - take the bird food away for a good few weeks.

Our kid ignored this advice because, as he put it, it's probably just a single rat feeding at night. I told him there's never a 'single rat', there's always more and they will repeatedly visit any food source once they've found one. The rats ended up tunnelling in his garden border and somehow got into the wall cavity. Cost him and his missus a fortune to sort out.

Billy Balfour wrote:If you ever see signs of rats or their droppings - take the bird food away for a good few weeks.

Our kid ignored this advice because, as he put it, it's probably just a single rat feeding at night. I told him there's never a 'single rat', there's always more and they will repeatedly visit any food source once they've found one. The rats ended up tunnelling in his garden border and somehow got into the wall cavity. Cost him and his missus a fortune to sort out.

We don't feed our birds on the floor, because of attracting rats etc.

The Woodmouse climbed up through the Ivy to get to the nuts in the Bird feeder... now we watch it scuttle out and nick the Hedgehog food (havent been fast eniugh to photograph it yet )

Bosscat wrote:We don't feed our birds on the floor, because of attracting rats etc.

He never fed them on the ground. They had a bird feeding station and a bird table. The rats were coming in at night feeding on the small bits that dropped onto the lawn.

Bosscat wrote:Check out the
http://www.uptheclarets.com/messageboar ... ey#p948681" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I regularly update on our little resodents that come every evening to get their tea we now have 4 regular visitors 2 littlish ones (this years youngsters) and 2 adults..... they all come at different times

I15645123611.jpg

Come rain or shine

Fantastic! Ours have not been seen for a couple of days now.

AshevilleNCClaret wrote:It's a shame that pretty much the only Monty Python known in the US is the Holy Grail.

While classic, their flying circus stuff is hilarious.

No it isn't. By the way is this the right room for an argument?

houseboy wrote:No it isn't. By the way is this the right room for an argument?

I've told you once

Bosscat wrote:I've told you once

Is this the full half hour or just the 5 minutes?