Every morning a large flock of Jackdaws / kaie fly past the house on the way to farmland to the east where they feed during the day…it happens very quickly so difficult to film. This morning I was filming the view of a snow shower over the fjord and the flock arrived, so I quickly started filming…
Category Archives: Birds
Woodpigeons
Woodpigeons at the bird feeder today showing threatening behaviour to protect their food..
Bullfinches in the garden
Xmas decorations
:)
Birds in the garden
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!
Greenfinch taking food from the bill of a hawfinch
Following up on yesterday’s film, here we see a greenfinch trying to take morcels of seed from a hawfinch (kjernebiter)..I saw this several times today and yesterday…it happens very quickly, but a still picture (below) seems to show the greenfinch’s beak inside the beak of the hawfinch and the greenfinch is pushed away..
Sparrowhawk
With so much food in the garden, the predators were out too!
Hawfinches and Nuthaches
A flock of 8 hawfinches, a couple of nuthatches, 20 goldfinches, chaffinches, greenfinches and blue and great Tits made for colourful views in the garden today!
The Goldies are back!
The Goldfinches (stillits) are back. They are winter visitors here and, as far as I know, it isn’t known where these birds breed, perhaps in the Baltic states /Finland, moving westwards to overwinter in our warmer weather!
These beautiful birds started appearing in my garden some 15 years ago as I grew and saved seed of vegetable burdock (borre) or Arctium lappa, their main food here in winter. At that time my garden was the best place to see them and I had several visits from bird photographers and birdwatchers to see them. It must be a bad year for burdock (there’s not much in my garden) as they’ve gone straight for the bird feeder, something that doesn’t usually happen until later in the winter.
Long-tailed tits
I see long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) (Norw: stjertmeis) in the garden usually only once each winter. Unlike most tits, they wander during the winter…and a small group of 8 birds passed through the garden today. I usually “spot” them when I hear their characteristic call. I was planting garlic in the garden and rushed inside for my camera! I was surprised to see them foraging on the ground under the bird feeder. I can’t recall seeing them taking food from my feeder before, nor seen them on the ground. However, they had gone again after about 15 minutes. It’s the white-headed rase (ssp. caudatus) we have here!
Long-tailed tits was one of the few birds I recognised in Japan in the spring!
