Sunday 30 March 2014

Nature Notes: February 2014

February


The month started with a slight frost leading to a sunny day. It was the first day I saw a GSW male take nibbles from the bird table or a robin feed from the seed feeder.
The female GSW is not as regular a visitor as she was but still makes an appearance on the peanuts. The two males have been seen arriving at the same time and chasing each other off.
A pair of starlings have started visiting the feeders but don't stay for long. This is also the case with a male yellow hammer which sat by the water bath on the 28th for about ten seconds and then flew off. We also had our first visit of two long tailed tits on the 19th. Unfortunately i didn't get any photographs but here are some other tits.

Blue tit
Coal tit

On the 23rd I counted ten goldfinches feeding at the same time; the norm was usually about five or six.
A house sparrow was seen guarding the garage nest box and once away a starling entered the box and left again.
The bird count for this month showed that the finches were the most numerous with the goldfinch and chaffinch taking the top two spots.
There was a big decline in the number of sparrows.
The seed feeders were the most popular.

Mammals

The only sightings this month were three deer on a local walk and the long haired Siamese (LHS) cat. He was sighted in the garden for the first time at 08:00 on the 6th.

A very distant deer



Other sightings

I uncovered two frogs that were living under a dense mat of damp dead Geranium leaves when I was raking about. I put the leaves back on them and hoped I hadn't disturbed them too much.

Average temperature 6°C

Total rainfall 66mm

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