Garden Birds

We have grey crows. They are quite noisy but otherwise ok and interesting. They seem to happily coexist with all the other birds except magpies. The magpies left when the grey crows arrived.

Goldcrest were frequent visitors over the last few years and occasionally long tailed tits, I have only seen one Goldcrest this year. Generally the number of birds visiting has dropped dramatically, mainly as there has been a huge increase in cats in the neighbourhood, one neighbour now has three. I hate cats.

I hope this Copy works.

Would love to see the Willow Warbler and Read Bunting, but not something that is likely to drop in, although on the super rare list there was a sighting of a Hoopoe not far from here. Another blow in like most of us in this area :-)

We have willow warblers on the edge of the garden. There are willows in the next field. Saw a bull finch yesterday. Also great tits, wren, blackbird, thrush, goldfinch, wagtail, swallows, dunnock, tree creeper, robin, wood pudge on, collared dove and hear the cuckoo constantly. I see him on my walks - nesting nearby. Magpies obviously and thee odd seagull. Rural area, lots of trees. In the west so no woodpeckers here yet. Lots of birds - I’ve never seen a greenfinch here.

I don't do Birdwatch Ireland surveys but there is a Weekly BTO Garden Birdwatch Survey I do. It's an interesting exercise.

Great list!

Must say I’m shocked at how infrequently you see hooded crows - they’d easily be a weekly visitor in my garden!!

@mallards I tried out that app Merlin Birds ID yesterday, very impressed, thanks for the heads up.

Just looked them up and didn't realise we only have the Greater Spotted Woodpecker as a recent blow in to Ireland? I was used to watching the Green Woodpeckers everyday where I used to live in the UK.

Not that unusual but one of the regular visitors to the garden that I find interesting is the pheasant which I caught on a video clip posted here. Lots of the birds already mentioned. Particularly like to see the swallows demonstrating their aerobatic skills at this time of year but could do without the poop they drop from the nest over the back door.

Happy gardening!

Living in Kilpedder, North East Wicklow, I have noticed some great spotted woodpeckers in recent years. Yesterday morning I pulled back the curtains to see one clinging on to a cordyline tree in the back garden and hammering away. That is the closest I have seen one to the house and it was great to see it in action.

Common Buzzards have become more so here in the past few years and I have seen them swoop down on smaller birds in the garden. In good weather I have seen up to six doing Red Arrow display stunts overhead. I also saw a Jay in the garden once.

I started up a ' birds wot I saw' Excel spreadsheet just this week and the woodpecker is the most exotic entry, for now.

Got a question about sparrows.

In these nice evenings, there would often be 20 odd of them all out flying about mad. Are they playing with each other? Or feeding? As I read they catch insects on the wing.

Apologies, swallows.

Edit : this phone has worst predictive text ever.

I think in America they call swallows house sparrows just to confuse things. I saw a photo on BBC last week showing a parent swallow feeding its young while they were both in flight. This would imply to me that the young take a bit of time to figure out how to catch food for themselves in flight so it is likely to be a mixture of play and feeding they are doing in the sky at this time of year.

Happy gardening!