I thought I’d take you for a tour of the lower parts of the garden including the forest garden. No commentary, let’s just listen to the birds and observe. In the first video, I unexpectedly stumble on a willow warbler (løvsanger), my first in the garden this year, foraging on the ground in the cold weather….you can otherwise hear singing redwing (rødvingetrost), great tit (kjøttmeis), fieldfare (gråtrost), meadow pipit (heipiplerke), house sparrow (gråspurv) and blue tit (blåmeis) in one of the two videos.
Two days of snow has attracted a large flock of birds to my bird feeder with some 30 bramblings (bjørkefink) and, nice to see, around 25 house sparrows (gråspurv), largely missing in recent years.
Even waxwings (sidensvans) are attracted although they don’t stay for long.
This chiffchaff (gransanger) is doing its best to control the invasion of diamond back moths (kålmøll) larvae! On cress (karse) and radish (reddik) being grown for seed! I also observed house sparrows (gråspurv) feeding on them earlier today! I was cheering them on! http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23073
House sparrows (gråspurv) are often ignored but apparently numbers have declined in Europe in recent years, estimated at 70% in the UK. A few years ago it was chosen as bird of the year here in Norway to draw attention to its plight. It is believed that modern day agriculture and perhaps lack of breeding spaces in modern houses…nice then to see a flock of 25 at the feeder the other day!
It was difficult to concentrate at the weekend as there was so much happening outside the living room window…here’s a selection of still pictures and videos of birds eating wild food and at and under the bird feeder!
Blackbird / svarttrost
Tree sparrow (pilfink) with greenfinch (grønnfink)
Redpolls (gråsisik) feeding on nettle seed
Fieldfare (gråtrost) on (rotten) apple
Rear view of Hawfinch (kjernebiter)
A robin (rødstrupe) payed a short visit, here with house sparrows (gråspurv) and goldfinch (stillits)
Still picture seemingly showing the greenfinch beak in the powerful hawfinch beak..
Here’s more evidence for the importance of having sparrows in our gardens! In the video can be seen both house and tree sparrows (gråspurv og pilfink) feeding on diamond back moth (kålmøll) larvae from kale leaves!
While eating breakfast this morning I spotted these house sparrows (gråspurv) eating diamond back moth (kålmøll) larvae from the undersides of these ragged jack kale plants, sown as a salad crop, but long since given up to the moths… Better late than never I suppose!!
