Garden Birds

The weather here in the West of Scotland has been cloudy and wet so I have not been going on any outings lately. There is little point in travelling to a place and having to put up with poor light and generally miserable conditions.

I have been setting up my spotting scope to watch the birds at the feeders in my garden and trying to improve my digiscoping.

As it is fairly mild for this time of year, there has not been a large number of birds at the feeders. In the cold winter months of December and January, the numbers will increase. The most frequent visitor to the feeders has been a Coal Tit, but some House Sparrows have also been attending.

Coal Tit

Coal Tit

I subscribe to an excellent blog written by an American called Suzanne and she recently included photographs of a small bird which she called a Chickadee. It looks very similar to a Coal Tit.

Coal Tit on left and female House Sparrow on the right

For a number of years, House Sparrows were in decline but their numbers have been increasing.

Robin

Robin Redbreast

With Christmas just around the corner many shops have started selling Christmas cards and calendars. Many of them will have pictures of Robins on them.This is because in Victorian Britain wore red tunics as part of their uniform and were nicknamed 'Redbreasts'. At Christmas time postmen were more in evidence and so the robin ‘redbreast’ began appearing on Christmas cards as a representation of the postmen.

The birds are portrayed as being sweet and fluffy but in reality Robins are aggressive birds and will fight to the death is another Robin enters its territory. However, they look nice at Christmas so we can forgive them a little bit for their aggression.

Hopefully, next weekend will be better and will allow different birds to be spotted and photographed.