Nick Hilton - Davyhulme (Covid 19 Garden Lockdown)

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RE: Nick Hilton - Davyhulme (Covid 19 Garden Lockdown)

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A Swift over the garden this afternoon was my first sighting of the year.

A young Woodpigeon has appeared in the garden today. Strangely I'd only recently been reading a BTO article written by a volunteer who monitors Wood Pigeons in Sefton Park , Liverpool. The breeding season in that area is generally July to September (possibly because the young birds are fed on ripening and ripe seeds from the park, collected by the adults and regurgitated for the young). The young birds in my area are obviously stuffed silly with my expensive sunflower hearts!

In the week I had fly-overs from Cormorant and Peregrine.

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A circling Sparrowhawk, a pair of low flying (rooftop) Canada Geese and more squadrons of Ring-necked Parakeet this weeks highlights

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Nothing too exciting for me in the last few days, the Coat Tits have been visiting. The local pair went through the shrubs in unison yesterday, usually its just a single bird that visits. A highlight was a singing Goldcrest in the adjacent garden.

Small squadrons of raucous Ring-necked Parakeet pass purposefully over in the mornings and early evenings.

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A typical suburban garden in a 1930's built housing estate on the outskirts of Manchester. Lawn, shrubs, small apple tree, bird feeders (suet and sunflower hearts).

Staple fair of House Sparrow (max count 24 recently), Starling (come for the suet), Robin (single), Dunnock (single), Wren (single), Blackbird (pair).

A gang of 9 - 11 Feral Pigeon (who swing flapping wildly on the sunflower feeders), half a dozen visiting Wood Pigeon and the occasional visit from noisy Ring-necked Parakeets.

A handful of Blue and Great Tits visit, and once or twice a day a Coal Tit will come in for the odd sunflower. A flock of Long-tailed Tit may pass through, with them the occasional Goldcrest (although they seem to stick to my neighbours Leylandii).

Goldfinch are regular visitors, with max recently of 11 birds on the sunflower feeders, less frequent are Greenfinch with just the single pair in the last week.

Magpies sometimes patrol the lawn but the resident Carrion Crow pair never seem to come down into the garden.

Overhead Black Headed, Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls pass by, Jackdaw at certain times of the day and Cormorant in the evening.

I may get the odd Sparrowhawk flying over and the occasional Buzzard.

For the last two days I could hear the gentle mewing of a buzzard, I craned my neck to see above the adjacent rooftops, scanning the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird. Its only this afternoon I've realised it's a bloody Starling mimicking the call, sat on top of a neighbours chimney!