Autumn Birds

Now that we’re into the Autumn the garden bird activity has picked up a little. The cats are spending less time outside during the day, compensated by more time during the night? Which is bad news for the mice, who are active and vulnerable at night, but much better for the birds.

The overall number of bird species in the garden is still less than ‘pre-cat’ but it’s recovering from the lows of August. There are lots of Great and Blue tits on the feeders but most of the ground feeders are still staying away, I haven’t seen a Dunnock for several weeks.

The change in the behaviour of the Parakeets has also been remarkable. For years they have been ever present and pest like in the garden, but over the last weeks they have largely disappeared, not just from my garden but also the immediate neighbourhood. I’m not sure why this is but I doubt that it can be related to my two cats. It will be interesting to see if this change is permanent.

As Winter is probably the peak time on the bird feeders I’ve reconnected a camera so that I can watch and record some of the action. I’ll try and live stream the camera during any particularly cold snaps as these are the moments with the most visitors and potentially also the most interesting.

For now I got a short snippet from the camera, including a visit from one of the many Jays who seem to have taken over from the Parakeets as the dominant bird force in the garden.