I blogged a couple of years ago about the uncanny nack the feathered visitors to my garden have of dispersing elsewhere over the last weekend of January, when I dutifully try to log their numbers for the RSPB's "Big Garden Bird Watch". Since this snapshot of avian activity is so persistently unreliable, I've taken to keeping a daily record instead, not so strictly timed but still noting the largest number of a given species seen at any one time during the day as well as recording which birds we see.
We hit 'peak goldfinch' yesterday with seven of the pretty little twitterers scrapping over five potential feeding stations - three for niger seed and two for sunflower hearts. They've become our most regular visitor all year and are rarely outnumbered except when the blue tits breed successfully and the garden is suddenly full of little fluffy balls of turquoise. Sparrows and starlings, the garden birds which flocked to the bread-crumbed bird-table in the garden I recall from my childhood, are less frequent visitors and not at all numerous.
Great tits and coal tits - never more than a pair at a time - are also regular visitors, although shyer than the blue's. We're occasionally treated to the sight and sound of a flock of long-tailed tits, fluttering through the garden to feed on fat-balls or peanuts, although we don't see them regularly, even during the winter when you might think they would appreciate a regular source of food.
Although the waxwings sighted across the country have never seen fit to check out the heavily-laden cotoneasters in the front garden - at least not when anyone has been looking - we have seen a fieldfare in the garden twice during very cold weather, eating both berries and the tiny crab apples on our ornamental tree.
Another rare visitor - too quick and tiny for my camera - is the goldcrest, although that little creature did make a fleeting appearance on BGBW day, so clearly hasn't yet learned the rules from the rest of the garden birds about keeping a low profile. That trick was perfected by the pair of siskins who dropped by the day after BGBW a couple of years after we moved in - and have never been seen here again, although we did see a flock at Trentham Gardens in February.
An unusual visitor seen this spring is blackbird with a difference - he's not all black! Rather shy and inclined to hang about at the bottom end of the garden away from the feeders and my camera, he's
leucistic with a ring of white feathers around his neck and some odd white splashed elsewhere too. He's been arguing over territory with a couple of other blackbirds for the past few weeks and can regularly be seen running about between the cabbages. At one point, he was being chased by a female, though that may be a bad rather than a good thing for him. He might also wish he was a little less conspicuous of the sparrowhawk pays a visit!
