All your life, you were only waiting

Plenty of activity at the feeder although by a relatively small number of individual birds. Because of where it is though I do have opportunity to photograph it from time to time.

I rather like this one - a juvenile blackbird getting stuck into suet and mealworms. Click to enlarge

Big softie

After my recent observations of the lonely robin I was pathetically pleased this morning to see a pair of robins flying around. Spring is in the air!

The half coconut with suet at the back has now had attention from

• Robin
• Blue Tit
• Great Tit
• Coal Tit
• Longtailed Tit

Some more pics to follow soon

More Tits

I was delighted to see another occasional visitor back today. We sometimes get long-tailed tits flittering around the hedge at the back of the garden and I was pleased to see one hanging around today. Obligingly it stayed still long enough for some initial pics. and only flew away when a great tit came around and bullied it. Hopefully there are more visits to come.

Blue Tits

Word is obviously getting around the avian community that there is a chunk of fat in a coconut shell at the back of our garden. Coal Tits, Great Tits and Blue Tits were at it today. Of the three the great Tit was the most timid - a quick peck then a rapid getaway.

By contrast this blue tit was around for a while and seemed to feel fairly secure despite the neighbour's lawn mower being active for the first time this year.

It is nice to see some activity at last. Elsewhere there were several Dunnocks flittering around and the lonely robin was still singing its heart out looking for a mate.


Gulls and Jackdaws are still around as are magpies and blackbirds. I can't spend the whole day looking out the window of course but I didn't see anything else of interest flitting around.

Unfortunately we still have plenty of cats wandering around which doesn't help. 

Taking the Rough With the Smooth.

Mixed fortunes in the garden today. First the downside - a magpie in the apple tree chewing on something sinewy which was either a new chick or possibly the contents of an unhatched egg. Either way it was raw and fresh.

More positively, I was pleased to see coal tits around again, taking advantage of the free food on offer. One of them obligingly held still long enough for the pics below.

Spring?

The garden is a little odd at present - the snow has mostly gone, although it lingers on the Pentlands, but it remains chilly. Even so the climbing honeysuckle and the apple trees are all about to blossom.  I had hoped to be able to photograph some pink apple blossom in the snow but that looks unlikely now.

And the bird life, though still quiet, is picking up a little. Over breakfast this morning I watched a pair of coal tits whizzing around and took pleasure that it was a pair with the promise of a clutch of little coal tits later in the year. And throughout the day a bold robin was singing its heart out from the old telephone wires, obviously llooking for a mate.

Last night as I came in from the office quite late I'm fairly sure that I heard at least one and probably two owls but they weren't visible in the darkness.