With the weather now wet and mild, the local bird scene is a quiet one. Winter visitors are restricted to the occasional redwing (grive mauvis) and brambling (pinson du nord) including a male of the latter which is a regular visitor at my bird feeder. It's always fascinating to see which species are drawn to feeders and how they behave when they are there.
Mine is dominated by great tits (mésange charbonnière) which are usually present in double figures. They are aggressive towards each other but are surprisingly often dislodged by the smaller and inoffensive looking blue tits (mésange bleue). The two robins (rougegorge) which are frequent visitors are of course very intolerant of each other and seem to expend much of the energy they are getting from the food in stopping the other individual having a feed.
A few species forage underneath the hanging feeders, picking up the droppings from the more acrobatic tits. These include a few chaffinches (pinson des arbres), house sparrows (moineau domestique), the aforementioned brambling (pinson du nord) and a dunnock (accenteur mouchet)
A wren (troglodyte mignon) occasionally flits around but I have seen nothing of greenfinches (verdier) or goldfinches (chardonneret élégant) this year nor of the more exotic hawfinch (grosbec) or nuthatch (sittelle torchepot) which have visited in the past.
Speaking of exotic, a kingfisher (martin pêcheur) flew by in all his halcyon splendour when I visited the Bonnieure yesterday. (In the days when La Poterie's pond was full of fish, I once had a kingfisher perched in the garden!) .
Like all the other local rivers, La Bonnieure is in flood at present and spreading over the surrounding fields. If they stay like this until the spring we shall be in for a treat of migrating waders and wildfowl.
Interesting to compare bird table visitors. Ours are also dominated by great and blue tits. However the foragers are mainly gold and green finches (which can easily reach double figures) as well as the usual house sparrows and chaffinches. We also have a pair of cirl buntings that visit if the weather is really cold. Other occasional diners include a lesser spotted woodpecker.
ReplyDeleteAll of this activity attracts another visitor - the sparrowhawk. Every afternoon it swoops low over our barn and scatters the tits and finches; it rarely gets a meal. A couple of weeks ago it had a shock when it was so intent on chasing its prey that it flew straight into one of our windows with a resounding thud. Fortunately it was only stunned and flew off again after a couple of minutes.
Being a bit of a fisherman, I regularly see kingfishers. A siting is more or less guaranteed all along the Charente. I even experienced the classic occurrence of a one perching on my fishing rod on one occassion last summer!
I've just topped up the feeders on this rather chilly Saturday morning and a greenfinch finally decided to put in an appearance. Together with the solitary goldfinch which came a couple of days back,this winter's tally is now 11...but there's plenty more out there.
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