The latest avian visitor to my indoors forest garden, also known as my living room (as it’s full of life!) is this young robin, maybe the same bird which regularly comes right up to me when I’m sat outside…
Tag Archives: European Robin
Robin joined me for breakfast
No, not my son Robin (he arrives tomorrow).
Robins (rødstrupe) have over the years I’ve lived here changed from a shy forest bird to the tame inquisitive bird I was familiar with in the UK before movimg to Norway. This morning a young bird joined me at the breakfast table for a preen, stretch and scratch before resuming catching insects…
The Birds
Over the last couple of days there’ve been large numbers of birds in the garden making me think of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, although there have been fortunately no casualties as far as I know. I try to limit the amount of bird food I put out (as its production isn’t good for birds) and it’s good to see that most species are still eating natural food.
This winter there’ve been reports from all over the county of unusual numbers of overwintering bramblings (bjørkefink) with flocks up to 300 birds recorded. I’ve had smaller flocks of 20-30 for some time, but yesterday they were everywhere in the garden and at least 140 birds were present, a new winter record for Malvik kommune! The films below show them both at the bird feeder, feeding on rowan berries (eating the seed and discarding the flesh) and also on the ground perhaps feeding on birch seed?
Apart from that there was a sizeable flock of some 60 waxwings (sidensvans) on guelder rose / krossved (Viburnum opulus) and hawthorn (hagtorn) , 11 bullfinches (dompap), 50 house sparrows (gråspurv), 6 goldfinches (stillits) still mostly on burdock seed, 16 siskins (on birch seed), 6 greenfinches (grønnfink), 2 hawfinches (kjernebiter) seen on plum stones and rowan berries, a single robin (rødstrupe), a couple of fieldfares (gråtrost) on apples and hawthorn, a great spotted woodpecker (flaggspett) and great and blue tits both establishing territories now. In addition, a flock of 500-600 jackdaws (kaie) fly over to the roost every evening.
Bramblings with a hawfinch:
Bramblings with a hawfinch feeding on rowan seed (at the end, both birds are seen to discard the flesh). A greenfinch was also feeding on rowan.
Bramblings on the ground (feeding on birch seed?)
Large flock of bramblings at the bird feeder:
Young basking robin!
Wishing my oldest and favourite son, Robin Arne Barstow, a very happy 37th today…..with a young basking robin (rødstrupe) in the garden
Robin’s fiend #1
My friend the robin’s worst fiends are all the neighbour cats…..and he/she has young to protect now.
I hear the robin alarming before I see the cat.
Dramatic Spring Days
You appreciate the sunny spring days much more when you have a couple of days of blizzards in between….our resident robin, blackbird and
chaffinch were back singing today! First the day train to Bodø passing.
Record early Robin
Ever since I moved here in 1984, it’s been one of the year’s highlights to hear the first robin (rødstrupe) singing in the spring and I’ve recorded this event every year since. However, it’s with mixed feelings that I woke up to this year’s first song this morning, a full 7 weeks earlier than what was normal in the 80s and 2 weeks earlier than my previous record. In the city, birds have been heard singing since January in the record mild January here…
A great tit (kjøttmeis) accompanies the robin in the second video!
Spring again
Close encounters
1) My local robin (rødstrupe) has been getting braver and braver over the last week and yesterday came and joined me and even sang to me…this is the robin’s sub-song, much more subdued than the main song:
…and it had something caught around one of its feet…I thought initially it was plastic, but it looks natural, so it will hopefully free itself. Perhaps it was asking for help? :)
2) I noticed this feral pigeon (bydue) on the driveway picking up seeds (birch?). I’ve never seen a feral pigeon before in the garden and I’ve never even see the common woodpigeons (ringduer), that breed in the garden, on the driveway. The only time I’ve seen a pigeon/dove before on the driveway was a probable rare Mongolian Turtle Dove a couple of years ago in winter. I started filming and to my suprise it walked towards me and passed very close and continued towards the house. This behaviour wouldn’t be unusual in the city centre, but it still took me by surprise.
I went indoors and watched it feeding outside the kitchen….and then suddenly there was a commotion in the living room. It had walked into the house and tried to fly through the window glass and was stunned hung upside down amongst the Begonias! I managed to grab hold of it and it flew off…
…and sat on the outhouse roof before disappearing!