Feeding the birds

There does seem to be two schools of thought in regards to feeding the birds during the nesting season. The general consensus these days favours feeding them and we are of the same mind. It is believed that the parent birds will only feed from the feeders when natural food is hard to come by, for whatever reason. If this is true or not I don't know but I have noticed increased activity on the feeder during the wet weather this week.

Today seems particularly busy between the showers. So far we have had a family of newly fledged greenfinches, a family of blue tits and great tits, a pair of chaffinches, the most gorgeous male bullfinch, a pair of goldfinches as well as the usual sparrows, pigeons, dunnocks, blackbirds and wrens on the ground below. Not forgetting the robin and thrush.

We are lucky and do get a huge variety of birds throughout the year. Winter being the busiest and bringing the occasional unusual visitor.

This is the first year for several years now that we don't have a webcam in one of the nest boxes. It broke and we left it too late to replace before the box was in use again. Which is a shame because I think this year it was used by great tits rather than blue tits.

It does seem to have been a really good year for nesting birds, with many on their second brood. Hopefully the present wet weather hasn't had too dramatic affect on them.