Over the eight months to Christmas, I have tried to get shots of all the young birds that have been brought to or just visited our garden and we've been so lucky to see so many, some commonplace, some not so much but all beautiful and great to watch as they develop and grow up.
The first shots I have are of the Starlings
Starlings turn up in hordes, so it seems anyway, the poor parents struggling to fend off all the young birds screeching and pecking at them but, I've also noticed that there seems to come a time when the adults stop feeding them and seem to demonstrate to them how to get the food themselves. The young ones can be hilarious to watch as they try or just stand looking without a clue but, pretty soon, start to fend for themselves, then another battle begins as they fight over any morsels they find and they're NOISY with it :)
The next young birds to show up, seem to be the Rooks, although I'm sure I miss some now and again. I was pretty amazed to see a young bird, brought to the feeders by its parent, Rooks were quite rare around us in S Wales so to have them turn up at the feeders was a really pleasant surprise and they're BIG!
Feed Meeeeeee
I can't say I'd ever seen a young Rook before, never mind get exposed to that cavernous mouth!
June 16th saw the arrival of the first Great Spotted Woodpecker young, they'd appear just behind an adult and clamber around the tree trunk keeping an eye on them but also, keeping an eye on me! So aware even at this young age. That said, there were a few times when the adult would fly off leaving a youngster alone and I often worried about the Sparrowhawk in the area but, to my knowledge, nothing like that ever happened until one evening as we were heading to bed, Jo heard a squealing outside. I looked out the curtains and a Sparrowhawk had a young GSW pinned on the ground! I ran outside and scared it away and both birds flew off, close call but, should I have scared it off? In my mind I have lured the smaller birds into this space by providing plenty of food so, there's an onus on us, to keep an eye on them.
These young birds have a kind of dirty grey finish to their body feathers which obviously clears to white(r) as they mature. The adults had been coming to the feeders for some time and I'd seen them "hide" food in the bark of the tree, maybe to teach the youngsters to look for themselves?
Grumpy young woodpecker?
It's very much a privilege to have such close contact with all these birds but, especially the woodpeckers, not being the easiest of birds to see, certainly in the recent past although they appear to be visiting garden feeders more and more now.
The first Blue Tit also appeared this month, they seem to have learnt to feed themselves very quickly indeed. That said, they can be hellish to get shots of, whizzing in and out so quickly. There are Coal Tits that visit the feeders and they are masters of in and out, fast and I have yet to see young ones.
The Blackbird youngsters put in appearance towards the end of June and seemingly fully fledged and fending for themselves. This one was in amongst the potted plants on our patio, right outside the doors.
Still in June, but only just, the new Chaffinch youngsters started to arrive and plenty of them.
So things really hot up as we pass through June and into July, lots of adults feeding up to carry back to their nests and lots of young birds dropping in to feed themselves or be fed.
Costs a small fortune feeding them all! :)
Remember the Wagtails? June 21st, right outside the patio doors an adult Wagtail feeding a young one. They appeared to leave the little one on its own really quickly and it bobbed around out there for quite some time before heading off.
I did have one unusual visitor in July and that was a Redpoll, which seemed to bring a youngster with it. Not certain about this one but the adult was a definite so, if anyone can positively ID this young bird for me, that'd be greatly appreciated.
That brings us into July 2022 so I'm going to split this into two parts.
