Garden Birds

With work being pretty non-existent at the moment due to the weather, I am taking solace in the fact that this cold snap is drawing more birds to my little back garden in Peterborough.
The number of finches has risen in the last few days with Chaffinches being the most numerous, then Goldfinches and then Greenfinches and then today I had my own pair of Bullfinches, if only briefly!

It is pleasing to see that there is still a fair number of Greenfinches and they do not seem to be showing any signs of the disease TRICHOMONOSIS, which is caused by a microscopic parasite which lives in the upper digestive tract of the bird and its actions block the birds` throat, which leads to the bird being unable to swallow. The bird then dies from starvation. The Greenfinch is the species most commonly effected, but all finches can contract the disease and also House Sparrows and Collared Doves.

There are also high numbers of Blue, Great and Long-tailed tits visiting regularly, with Long-tailed tits feeding mostly on the fat balls, whilst the other birds seem to go for the sunflower hearts.

I do feed the wild birds a wide range of food from a number of feeders dotted around the garden which I am making sure are being kept topped up whilst the arctic wind keeps blasting our shores. It will help the birds survive the winter.

Male Bullfinch

Male Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Robin

Blackbird

Greenfinch

Greenfinch

All digiscoped using Lumix FS15 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

Bullfinch

Below are a couple of shots of a male and female Bullfinch. A lovely little bird that has had a drastic fall in numbers in the last 25 years (a drop of between 45 and 50%).

The main food is native tree buds, oak, sallow and hawthorn are all eaten with their taste for fruit buds being their undoing. Indeed the damage inflicted on commercial fruit crops gave the bird the status of an agricultural pest, this giving rise to their culling! They also eat soft fruits and seeds and you can see on the photo`s that their beaks are covered in the rowan berries they have been happily munching on.

There has also been a loss of hedgerows with standard trees and agricultural intensification which are both thought to have helped the decline in numbers.

Male

Female

Digiscoped using Lumix FS15 and Kowa TSN-883 X30