Month: March 2020

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The winter birds that come into the garden in January are usually the ones that I have seen in the garden in November and December of the previous year. As long as there is food on the ground they hang around. I did not have many apples on the apple tree the year before so there was not a surplus of apples to feed any passing Fieldfares or Redwings.

A male and female Blackcap visited the garden regularly right through until March. In winter they enjoy the suet balls as do any visiting Goldcrests and Long-tailed Tits. I had the occasional visit of a Treecreeper and on one occasion, surprisely, it was feeding on the seeds on the ground. The first Yellowhammer came in at the beginning of February and from then they regularly came in. At one point there were eight in the garden at one time.

On a short walk up at the Enterprise Park I saw a small group of Bullfinches feeding on the ground and the bare trees allowed me to get a decent glimpse of Great Spotted Woodpecker. One of the buildings there had a large group of Feral Pigeons huddling together for shelter from the cold. There must have been well over a hundred.

The usual winter ducks were to be found at Burghead also – Eider and Long-tailed Ducks – but not in particularly large numbers.

Signs of Spring were beginning to appear in the garden when the Tree Sparrows and the House Sparrows were checking out the same nest box and deciding which of them could use it. In the end neither of them used it.

It was March before I made the first trip of the year up the Dava. There were lots of Pink-footed Geese near Little Aitnoch flying overhead and in the fields. There was also the usual Stonechats that can be seen all year round near there.

Little did I know then that this would my last trip away from home for a while as Lockdown started.