I'VE LEFT IT TO THE PROFESSIONALS

Our injured Goldfinch is now in better hands than mine. I rang the RSPCA to see what would be the best thing to do with it as I had noticed it's broken it's wing, they said to take it to your local vets and they would call and pick it up from there. So the family put him in a clean box last night and I took him up to the vets this morning where I should think it'll get well treated. It's a lot healthier than it was and tried to leap out of the box at the vets. Hope it get's back to full health and strenghth and I might see it back at my feeding station like this one. 

a healthy goldfinch

Let's hope our goldfinch makes a speedy recovery.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE GOLDFINCH?

The wife was outside grooming the dog of all things and came across 2 Goldfinch. One was dead and the other was in a sorry state it looked frightened and dazed so much so that Tina picked the live goldfinch up without the bird even trying to fly off and brought it inside.

the poor old dead goldfinch

this one looks frightened but still alive

We put the little mite inside a cardboard box with cotton wool, some niger seed and water and put it in a quiet dry place to see if it will survive the night so we can let it free. Fingers crossed all goes well for this little finch and it can join the others in the morning. It weighs hardly anything, it makes you realise how fragile these birds are.

I'm still wondering what happened to these birds as there's not a mark on them? I think the more likely answer is that my feeding station by the side of the house was attacked by Sparrowhawk,  as the finches scattered in terror they may have flew into the wall or might be that frightened that it just froze. Think there is stories of attacks on birds by sparrowhawks that the birds die of fright, anyway that's the only logical thing I can think of, but if you got any idea's or any tips how  I can nurse this one back to full health please leave a comment. 

MIGRANTS

Since the swallow arrived the other day we've had two more migrant species fly in they are wheatear and redstart these are stunning looking birds and I'm hoping to get a few photo's of them as the spring and summer goes on.

Redstart

Wheatear

I hope I can get as good a pic this year of  these two birds as I did last year.

ONE SWALLOW

Just a quick post to say the first swallow arrived at the farm this morning (unless he arrived earlier and I missed it). We got a couple of sheds near the house where they nest every year so I expect them to be successful breeders this year. Here's a couple of pic's of them that I took last year;-

I think you can tell they're not from this year as the sky is blue, having said that we didn't get much blue sky last year.

LAMB CHOPS

Obviously living on a farm we get our fair share of farm animals about the place. and it being spring (at last) thought I'd put a couple of pic's of the lambs that are now wandering around near the house with their mothers. There is a down side to this as we haven't got our bit of ground fenced off yet so the sheep and the lambs crap everywhere and are very patial to the bird food I put out on the feeding stations but that said I think the lambs are very cute.

don't eat the flowers lamb chop, our daffs are only just starting to bloom

lamb

altogether now "mint saurce"!

 Here's a couple of bird pic's to keep you going.

a common site up here of a carrion crow chasing off a buzzard





jay's are still about

regular breeder up here the dunnock

this pied wagtail still looking at himself in my car's wing mirror (stop pooping)

hopefully this nuthatch will take up residence in one of our boxes

another linnet pic

reed bunting

 We'll have the cows down in a few weeks now they can shite, so I hope Tina's started to plant her garden by then so we can put it to good use.

LINNETS ARE BACK

Male and female Linnet today feeding on the floor under feeders, looks like they're back on territory ready hopefully to start breeding. 2 years ago I had massive numbers of these birds around our place during spring and summer. Last year hardly any like I've said on previous posts the disastrous weather we had last year and the loads of failed breeding attempts the birds had may have been why. Reed buntings now singing and in their summer dress as well as meadow pipit's displaying has thankfully and finally brought spring to our mountain, a bit of nice weather now wouldn't go amiss!

male linnet

male linnet

male linnet

female linnet

Here's some of the others that my nest finding butty Steve Carter will hope to be recording:-

meadow pipit

reed bunting

nuthatch

dunnock

Good golly gosh we'll be watching springwatch before you know it!

Foot note:- Thanks Guy for being a follower (even if Eira made you) I'm up to 4 now, cheers.

SLIDESHOW

Here's a little avian slideshow I put together showing some of my favourite images:-

Hope you enjoyed that, I enjoyed taking them, well most of them anyway.

SOME BIRDY PHOTO'S

I haven't really had that much to blog about, no migrants yet but having said that the cold weather has now turned warmer but alas wetter, I've got another week on crutches before I'm finally free and can start living a bit. I decided to take a few photo's today and in my boredom I decided to edit them and put them on here. Now the weather has turned milder I should think that the breeding season should really take off. We've got a few nest boxes put up around the place so we hope to have a few of them in use in the not to distant future, lets hope for some sunny spring weather when I'm back on my feet next weekend "hallelujah".

nuthatch

jay

siskin

pied wagtail

G S Woodpecker's head (I didn't think you'd like a pic of his arse)

magpie

singing chaffinch

G S Woodpecker

reed bunting

 a non singing chaffinch

Hope you liked them, now come on birds get breeding!

A PAIR OF WAGS

The male Pied Wagtail that I mentioned on a previous post has now been joined by the female. Hopefully now they'll settle down and start nest building, the male has been attacking the wing mirrors on my car and covered them with bird poop which I might need a hammer and chisel to get off.  Let's hope that the female of the species helps make him think of doing other things to do  like nest building and being a good daddy.

female pied wagtail

old stumpy the male pied wagtail

I hadn't noticed until I took this pic today that the male has only got one foot. It doesn't seem to bother him or stop him from doing anything. At the moment both male and female seem to be just feeding haven't seen any signs of courting yet but the weather is still freezing.

GREEN WOODY

I managed to capture this green woodpecker feeding on Ants near the house yesterday this is the female. The quality of the pictures isn't very good but at least you can tell what it is and with green woodpeckers being so shy and very skittish until I can get into a hide I think is the best I'm going to get. The male was also there but much to far off for a photo I had to severely crop these of the female as she was quite a distance from me as well.

As you can see from some of the pic's the snow hasn't quite gone yet. I wonder if they've started to excavate their nesting holes? It's another challenge for the BTO's nest finder Steve Carter.