May, 2012
For days we were watching the wildlife through the windows of our house before one day we decided to take our cameras and spend some time photographic visitors of our small garden. We transformed our shed to a hide, covered a garden fence with some grass for a better background and of course filled feeders with sunflower seeds, nuts, suet and dry worms. With a cup of tea and comfy cushions we were ready for some action.
During the first couple of days Starlings were the most frequent guests. Their numbers have fallen drastically over the last years in England, so it was nice to see them in our garden.
Starlings were a little bit noisy and greedy, they used to descend on food in large numbers and eat most of it leaving not a lot for the other birds. It was interesting to watch how juveniles chase after the parents asking for food or fight each other over a bigger and tastier piece; there was a lot of action by the feeders.
We made an additional feeder for Goldfinches, Dunnocks, House Sparrows, Robins, Blue Tits and other small birds, so the presents of fighting starlings would not bother them too much. They seemed to be pleased with the idea.
Light was not always great but it was a pleasure to capture our little friends.
We were thrilled to see Great Spotted Woodpeckers in our garden. At the beginning there was a male Woodpecker regularly visiting a suet feeder but later a juvenile spend some time with us. Luckily he did not react to a clicking noise of our cameras and wasn't too shy to pose.
One day we spotted a Stag beetle next to the flower bed.
Neighbors' cats used to check out our garden from time to time.
While spending time in the garden or scanning it through the windows we noticed that a Fox likes to turn up in evenings.
In couple of month she even brought two cubs for us to see. One of them is still enjoying our garden and gives us a visit every evening.
Foxes like to visit a garden at night.
Couple of weeks ago we were very surprised to see a Sparrowhawk on the fence of our garden. We haven’t seen him since, but we are sure he scans the feeders from time to time. Hopefully one day we gonna manage to take a picture ...
More news ... we had a Fieldfare visiting our garden this winter. Apples have done a trick. He stayed for three days but departed as soon as snow melted. Good life was back to normal for Blackbirds as the Fieldfare was a bit aggressive and didn't let them near the apples.
Recently we had a nice encounter with a Wren which decided to visit our garden too. So every morning we are treated to a nice and loud Wren's song.