[New shoot]

The garden robin has a rival, so fisticuffs this morning.  I also filled up the fatball feeder, so sparrows and starlings are alternatively squabbling over that.

My birds are starting 2018 all guns blazing 

[robinahood]

Went for a stroll at a local nature reserve today, a kingfisher landed on a lake side branch about 10 feet away from me,  that was an unexpected pleasure!

[snowdrops]

Robinahood,what a treat, I would love to see a kingfisher. I’ve stopped feeding the birds now I have my late mother’s cats,it’s just not fair on them, I do miss the robins & blackbirds we used to get.

[Offwego]

Today's the daily visit by the pair of doves was as usual disturbed by the crows who chase them away from the bird table, then the starlings and the noisy robin

When my wife and i were walking to the allotment we saw 2 male bullfinches and a chaffinch in the bare trees so a welcoming sight, haven't seen wild bullfinches for ages round by us which is a great shame

[LILLILEAF]

I do my bird watching in the evening as we have many owls around,the most beautiful is the barn owl i see most evenings,there must be plenty of food in the fields that surround our house ,i shall be doing the rspb bird watch again this year.

[snowdrops]

I spotted & heard a lovely robin perched high in the bare branches of one of the acers this morning, it was singing for all its worth & not a cat in sight 😊

[Eblana]

I have a very cheeky Robin in my garden who follows me everywhere and if I don't give him his food quickly enough I hear all about it.  I also have feeders out so I have lots of blue tits, greytits, starlings, blackbirds etc. plus two wood pidgeons (Fred and Bertha) who visit the garden regularly.

On Monday while walking the dogs on the golf course behind my house there was a flock of Curlews sitting on one of the greens, I have only ever seen single birds around here so was really pleasantly surprised to see so many.

[LILLILEAF]

RSPB bird watch this weekend,i have asked for the big bird watch pack,but for the second year running it never arrived :(why i have no idea,so i asked again they have failed again ,don't they want my support?.

[robinahood]

I live on the edge of the city and something I love to see and hear at dawn and dusk is rooks flying, presumably to and from their roost, whereabouts unknown to me. They are in loose groups high in the sky, and talking to each other. Yesterday I was off to work as day was breaking, looked up and saw that the rooks were murmurating, I thought that was just starlings! Almost made going to work a pleasure...

[8doubles]

I live on the edge of the city and something I love to see and hear at dawn and dusk is rooks flying, presumably to and from their roost, whereabouts unknown to me. They are in loose groups high in the sky, and talking to each other. Yesterday I was off to work as day was breaking, looked up and saw that the rooks were murmurating, I thought that was just starlings! Almost made going to work a pleasure...

Suprising how many corvids can gather at these winter roost sites , there used to be a belt of conifers just outside my home town that attracted hundreds of rooks, crows and jackdaws !
They really enjoy playing on a blustery day !

[New shoot]

I had a pair of wrens hopping round in the back garden this morning, calling to each other.  Such big voices for such little folk   

Then a whole group of long tailed tits decended on the fatball feeder and were having a lovely time on there 

[mumofstig]

I had my coffee in the greenhouse this morning and was watching the wrens darting about as well 
The birds don't seem to see me in there as long as I stay still, I don't know why that should be, but lets me see much more of them than I used to

[DanielCoffey]

We moved to a rural location in South Ayrshire last year so have the chance to see a lot more birds around us than we used to in Edinburgh. Since many of them are a bit too far away to see with the naked eye and the iPad camera is too weak to zoom, last week I treated myself to a pair of 8x42 binoculars to have a better look. It turned out to be a great idea!

The first thing we used them for was to identify some Starling-sized birds in the neighbour's paddock. They were present in flocks of several dozen, looked from a distance about Starling sized but were too pale. Under the binos we could clearly see they were patterned like a Thrush but were only 2/3 sized. They had an orange patch under the folded wings and a light bar across the eyes. They were the winter Redwings which apparently come from Iceland to Scotland and then leave again in March.

We are also in one of the areas where the corvid "super-flocks" form in the evening. Several thousand birds congregate at dusk for about 10 minutes in the late Autumn and Winter to socialise. They are a mixed flock of mainly Jackdaws and make quite a mess! Spectacular though.

[sunshineband]

Look who came to visit: a male sparrowhawk

[ghost61]

OH got very excited whilst we had our morning coffee, as I pointed out a very small bird darting around in the arbutus - turns out it was a female goldcrest. Never seen before!

Every morning when I get up to sort out the hens, a ms,e blackbird and a couple of robins come to the garage door and wait for me to throw them some seed/ mealworms.  If they're not there, a quick whistle brings them flying in!  Bless!  Female blackbird is nest building too!