Late Afternoon Visitor

[CHJ]

Wondered why the flock of Yellowhammers and Chaffinches had gone off the lawn feeders, then noted the reason.
Stayed for 20 mins. or so but for some reason no welcoming gathering came out to converse.

 

[AJB Temple]

Lucky you. Good spot.

 

[Claymore]

Beautiful male Sparrowhawk! and lovely photos too, we get females here everyday but haven't seen the males for ages.
Cheers
Brian

 

[CHJ]

Our Garden I'm afraid is a bit of a quick call supermarket on their rounds, don't often stay for a rest more likely to frighten the living daylights out of you as they hedge hop dive across the garden or through the pergola over the gate to the veg plot at speed. Just occasionally they will try and hide away in a tree waiting for a target but the locals are pretty savvy and keep an alarm call system going.
Regular fare for them is a dove. The flocks of small ground feeders seem to be able to evade them the majority of the time, I think it's the confusion of numbers scattering in different directions and they have to be very determined to target the nut feeders which are predominantly in shrubs or close proximity to cover. (the anti squirrel cages also give protection)

That reminds me, the seed bins are getting low, must call in for some more today.

 

[donwatson]

Lucky you, great pictures.

 

[Alexam]

Fantastic. Hope he drops in for another visit. Your feed boxes are about twice of ours and I thought I was spending a lot. Well done to look after them. Im sure some of mine have flown your way as we seem to have fewer visits these days, probably because of the wider variation of rations.

Malcolm

 

[CHJ]

Guess we get a more diverse selection than you may see, these are in the garden at the moment, having had their fill from the seed tray.

 

[Jonzjob]

Great shots Chas!! We have found 3 piles of feathers in various parts of the garden. All collared doves. We get a hell of a lot of them here.

I was looking out into the garden one day and caught the feather pile maker at work!







They are fantastic to watch, as long as you ain't got feathers!!

 

[whiskywill]

Had one of these in our garden last week.



It's a Reeves pheasant.

 

[Jonzjob]

That's one heck of a tail Will !! A beauty init.

But yet another Chinese import :mrgreen:

A few years back we had a couple of **** pheasants visiting our garden hoovering up all the bird seed. One tasted lovely, SWMBO stopped me shooting the other one with my catapult :shock: I shot the one straight in the back of the head with a nice round pebble. Hung it in my workshop far a few daze and skinned it. I can't be bothered plucking them.