Garden Birds

The number of bird species coming into the garden has reduced since the arrival of summer: for example, we no longer see any siskins even though we had six regular visitors feeding off the peanuts throughout the winter.

Those that are still visiting us are so desperate for food they're approaching us much closer, offering some golden opportunities to photograph them. So this song thrush, normally a shy bird, was hopping around on the wall in front of the house not feet from where we were drinking our tea

We haven't seen house sparrows down this end of Ormsaigbeg in the five years we've lived here but now they're suddenly back - and as cheeky and quarrelsome as ever. This cock sparrow was showing off to his lady from the vantage point of the top of our statue - called Phoebe - in the front garden.

This robin is an advert for weight watchers. A fat little thing at the beginning of spring, he's either lost weight so he could be attractive to a mate, or as a result of winning a mate and having to feed the resulting brood.

Dunnocks are The Diary's favourite bird because they're so unassuming (see earlier post here), so it was a great pleasure to capture this super shot of one sitting on a fence post amongst the brambles on the hillside beyond our back fence.