It has been a lovely day here, with clear blue skies and a chill in the air, but perfect for day in the garden. With so many mature trees and a large hedge that was trimmed this week, my garden was covered in leaf debris and that had to be my first job of the day. The oaks are still covered in leaves, so there are going to be a few more leaf sweeping session this Autumn / Winter I am sure!
Bird numbers are picking up, with lots of goldfinches and greenfinches visiting every day on the feeders that I am live streaming in HD. I have had lots of lovely comments and it is so lovely to know that other people are enjoying watching my bird feeders. Many who contact me do not have gardens of their own, so they really enjoy watching the varied visitors to my patch.
I am showing a variety of feeders at the moment… many of which I am trialling and then selling in my shop if I feel they perform well. I am generally feeding a mixture of sunflower hearts, black sunflower seed and nyger, along with suet pellets and suet snacks, which are definitely favoured by the woodpecker!
Below are a couple of clips that will give you a flavour of what you might see if you tune into one of my feeder cams during the day!
These are not the only place I feed though. There are other places around the garden, with standard, nest box-type cameras on them. I updated two of these today. I wanted to ensure I offered some platform type feeding spaces as well as hanging feeders. I have seen the overwintering blackcap around and they prefer to feed from a platform.
I used an old hanging metal feeder platform and screwed it onto an upright post. I already had a nest box camera on this area, mounted inside a piece of guttering to protect it. I do not really want the magpies and wood pigeons monopolising this area, so I adapted an old squirrel baffle I had and attached this above the feeder to stop larger birds landing on it and also to keep the food dry without cutting out the light. I will monitor this feeding station with i-catcher and see if my blackcap finds it!
I have a huge hedge that runs along the field side of my garden. This week the farmer trimmed it, meaning I could set up my hedgecam feeders again. This hedge is about 8 ft tall and about 3m wide! I have 2 wooden platforms that I rest on top of this hedge. The top of it is level with my office window, so it is like a bird table! On one platform I mounted a new ground feeder I am trialling for my shop. It has a cage all around it to keep larger birds out and a feeder built inside.
On the second platform, I mounted one of the suet feeders. It has a circular perch and I used cable clips to secure it to the platform. I also used a jacket potato spike to serve 4 apples. This platform will offer access to all species, so the food inside is a cheaper seed mix.I can also easily mount the Bushnell Natureview on here to monitor visitors as I do not have a camera on here…… yet!
Finally, I cleaned out the Prickly Diner… which has been taken over by my rat visitors! Tonight , this rather sweet youngster appeared… he is not much bigger than a mouse at the moment!
Keep an eye out for the bullfinches on my live feeders as well… I can hear them around, but with quite a lot of natural food still around, they have not ventured to the feeders much yet.