As you can see, we have a well- patronised bit-table, and feeding areas in our garden.
(http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/peanuts46/RIMG0019_zps626e0731.jpg)
During the winter there are loads of birds who come all day along, including 30+ gold-finches, 40+ bramblings,
(http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/peanuts46/RIMG0003_zps3750fa3d.jpg)
several nuthatches, plus all the usual garden birds, and four hawfinches (two male and two female), which thrill us as we've never seen them in the UK. They're not that common here either. Here is one of the females'
(http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/peanuts46/RIMG0011_zps190a1a27.jpg)
Or favourite at the moment though, is "Hop-along", a female chaffinch with a seriously gammy foot. she can barely put it to the ground and doesn't put any weight on it. But she seems to cope, and feeds with all the others. Not good quality photos of her, as I was zooming, and then cropped them. But it gives you an idea of her handicap!
(http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/peanuts46/RIMG0012_zpsb0516ebc.jpg)
(http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/peanuts46/RIMG0002_zps6cb42e50.jpg)
Lovely to watch and much more preferable to TV
excellent piccies peanuts.
Gazza
WOW,
I jump for joy when we get siskins on the bird feeder, If we had what you've got on your feeder I'd be doing cartwheels...lol
Beautiful.
Gertie :happy7:
What fascinates us down here, on the edge of the Pyrenees, is the change from one winter to the next. Two years ago we were over-run by siskins all winter, last year just one for one day. This year we've seen a couple this week, but that is all.
Three years ago we had 40-50 bramblings every winter's day. That same winter we were taken to a brambling roost way up in the mountains, where there were reckoned (by the experts) to be 10 million, ye I do mean that, bramblings amassing every evening. It was an amazing sight. We had to walk an hour upwards on a tiny track, then come back afterwards in the dark! Last two years there were none, apparently because the beech trees locally had virtually no nuts, although we did have one lone brambling that came daily with the chaffinches and goldfinches, perhaps it got confused as to its identity! This year we have a good number of bramblings in the garden, and we hear that there have been about 1 million at the roost. We haven't managed to get there as I'm trying to be sensible, having cracked a bone in my ankle three weeks ago - it is mending well, so I mustn't be tempted!