Tag Archives: Hawfinch

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:

Nervous blackcap on apple

A male blackcap (munk) in the garden feeding nervously on an apple that a fieldfare (gråtrost) has been guarding attacking any bird that gets near.



…and then demonstrating that SIZE MATTERS as Herr Blackcap (munk) meets Hr. Hawfinch (kjernebiter) with guest appearances by Hr. Siskin (grønnsisik) and Hr. Brambling (bjørkefink)…..and there’s a finale!

 

 

 

Hawfinches in the garden

There’s been a single hawfinch (kjernebiter) in the garden for several weeks but yesterday there were five….and it’s all about SIZE…that beak means other birds don’t threaten their position getting the best pickings! The first rays of the sun shone on the bird feeder yesterday!

Bombycilla garrulus and Coccothraustes coccothraustes

How DO they make up those scientific names? A small group of waxwings (sidensvans) in the garden with 4 hawfinches (kjernebiter) provided entertainment (distraction) this afternoon….waxwings are berry eaters (e.g. the flesh of rowans / rogn) and hawfinches eat hard tree and fruit seeds (also rowan, eating what the waxwings disgard!)

I try to “grow” as much food for birds as possible in my garden. This includes leaving some fruit, planting various species of rowan (Sorbus), not tidying the garden until late winter, so that, for example, seed of nettles and burdock is available for finches. I also don’t feed the birds with bought in sunflower seeds until it gets properly cold, until then there’s plenty of natural food available. There’s nowadays a large acreage put down to non-organic production of bird seed in other countries which is certainly detrimental to birdlife in those countries and there is evidence that providing bird seed during the breeding season can have a negative effect on some species! So, is feeding birds a good thing or just for our entertainment? A bit of both I think!

  1. Hawfinch and waxwings towards the end…taken from the living room /office!

2. Waxwing on apple. It was a bad rowan berry year and there are unusually few waxwings around (perhaps good news for an invasion further south, e.g., in the UK?). This is one of the apples I left for the birds…the video was taken from the living room!

Birds in the garden 7th February 2018

Bird paradise!

It’s about as like winter England as it gets here this morning, grey and drizzling….so nice to have a flock of 17 goldfinches (stillits) brightening up the day and lots of other birds too!

Hawfinch (kjernebiter)

Robin (rødstrupe) with brambling (bjørkefink)
There was also a flock of 100 waxwings feeding in the garden, nuthatches and a treecreeper…Malvik is bird paradise at this time of year!