Garden Bramblefinch

Buses

Siskins are like buses, you wait for ages (5 years in my case) for one to turn up and then two come along at once. Well, not quite at once, but nevertheless, this male Siskin was seen on one of my feeders at the weekend, just a few days after seeing a female. This represents a huge increase in the sightings of this bird in my garden, although I haven't seen either bird since.

The Bramblings are still coming, but on Sunday we had 4 of the little beauties, 3 females and 1 male, still not in breeding plumage, but getting more stunning by the day!

Male Brambling

Female Brambling

Unusual garden visitors

A couple of weeks ago I awoke to a good few inches of snow. The bird numbers in the garden consequently increased and with it I got a few birds that are good to see anywhere, but especially in a small garden in the north of Peterborough. Whilst nothing scarce or rare, seeing a female Siskin for only the second time in 5 years was a bonus and then a flock of 5 Redwing flew in, obviously looking for an easy meal. The female Brambling was also paying a visit accompanied by up to 30 Chaffinches, although there was no sign of the male.

Female Brambling

Female Brambling

Redwing

Female Siskin

The weather this week, whilst not snowing, has still been extremely wintery and consequently the bird numbers have still been pretty high. 16 Reed Buntings is a new garden record and there are still 35+ Chaffinches visiting regularly. This week though saw the return of the male Brambling, starting to show brighter plumage detail, although he is still not in breeding plumage as his head would be completely black and his bill would also be fully black. Still a beautiful bird though.

Male Brambling

Bramblings still

Today has been dull, dank and thoroughly miserable, a bit like my mood. Still licking my wounds a bit after a big 'dip' at the weekend, but at least I have still got a couple of these Scandinavian finches coming to the garden, I just wish that they would come when the sun is shining. The top 4 photos show a male Brambling with the bottom photo showing a feisty female telling a male Chaffinch exactly what she thinks of him!

Garden Brambling

Yesterday, after work I just happened to look out of the kitchen window and see this lovely male Brambling perched in the hazel in our garden. On further inspection a second was revealed! This is the first time that we have had more than one of these finches in our back garden and the first one noted for a couple of years.

The photo above was taken at about 3.45 in the afternoon through a double-glazed window, so not the sharpest photo ever taken, but I hope it shows the lovely colours and pattern of this Scandinavian visitor.

Number 176 for my PBC year list. Will I make it to 180?

Bramblings galore!

This year has been a fairly good one so far for sightings of Brambling in the PBC area. There were at least 10 in amongst a flock of Chaffinches near work today.
They were quite happily `flitting` from tree to tree, until a male Sparrowhawk `buzzed` by causing a deal of upset!He was unlucky in his assault, but put the wind up the flock which dispersed rather rapidly!

A picture of the back of one of the Brambling showing the (what I think) amazing patterns.

All Digiscoped using Lumix FS15 and Kowa TSN-883 x30