Garden Birds

It's five and a half years since I moved to the Rede valley and, coming here from a small house with an almost birdless back-yard garden in the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, it has always been a pleasure, and sometimes a great surprise, to watch the various birds that visit or fly over my garden. I am lucky here to have a small mixed wooded area immediately in front of the house which includes white poplars and Scots pine and provides cover for the birds when visiting the feeders.

Very occasionally, a new bird is added to the list; the stars this year have been the Redpolls that appeared out of the blue on the first day I put up my new nyjer seed feeder in late February. Long-tailed tits also found, but seem subsequently to have forgotten their way to the garden this year. It's not a very large list, some 40 species at most, but when the weather or something else stops me from going out, they all help brighten the day.

The list includes the males, females and young of most but not all of the following: Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Chaffinch; Brambling, Siskin and Redpoll; Coal, Blue, Great and Long-tailed tits; Blackbird, Song Thrush and Fieldfare; Reed Bunting and House Sparrow; Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff; Pied Wagtail, Wren, Robin, Dunnock and Nuthatch; Great Spotted Woodpecker and Tree Creeper; Tawny Owl and Sparrow Hawk; Rook, Carrion Crow and Jackdaw; Starling and Pheasant with Heron, Swallow, House Martin, Swift and Buzzard flying overhead.

Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Wandering the Wansbeck

Leaving Kirkwhelpington by the gated lane to Wallington, I stopped by the side of the River Wansbeck thinking I might see a dipper. Sadly there was no dipper, but a pair of grey wagtails were feeding on the river side, a Blackcap was singing across the water, a male Redpoll trilled high in a tree behind me and Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs were calling from every direction. Then, a robin, which had been flitting in and out of the hawthorn beside me for some time, forgot about insects for a moment, perched and sang its heart out.


Robin (Erithacus rubecula), singing in the hawthorn


A female Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinera)
I took time to enjoy the flowers today, having overlooked them for too long on my wanderings. There was a wonderful carpet of bluebells in the laneside wood with cowslips popping up amongst them, their complementing colours splashed by thin shafts of sunlight breaking through the undergrowth. And I was delighted to see water avens, with their nodding, bell-shaped flowers, and ferns, twirled as tight as a Bishop's crook, on the verge of unfolding. Butterflies included large and green-veined white, peacock, orange tip and small tortoiseshell. So, birds, flowers and butterflies; a perfect and peaceful afternoon.


Bluebell (Endymion non-scriptus)


Water avens (Geum vivale)


Cowslip (Primula veris)


Lots of ferns unfolding


Green-veined White (Pieris napi)
The picture of the Grey Wagtail was digiscoped. All of the other pictures were taken with my Nikon D50.