A first for me !

[john robinson]

This is the first Brambling I've had on a feeder. That makes a total of about
21 species in all. What next I wonder.!?

[Joe stockwell]

i don't know what you have to come next but i wish i had your garden!

[john robinson]

Thast's it Joe - Hawfinch would be nice-or a swan perhaps !
Cheers
JohnR

[AndyB]

cracking looking bird

[Joe stockwell]

only ever seen one hawfinch , it was in northen france

[Colin Key]

This is the first Brambling I've had on a feeder. That makes a total of about
21 species in all. What next I wonder.!?

Nice bird John, except that I don't really like to see shots of the birds on feeders or bird-tables. Do you ever put up a more natural perch (bit of a dead bush, few twigs, etc) close to the feeder to try and catch the birds before they actually get to the feeding station?

Having said that, I am envious that you can actually get birds to come into "provided" food; down here they will not (and many other people here have the same experience - Haiths would go bust in Portugal!!). I have tried feeders brought over from the UK, made bird tables and hung suet blocks and bacon rind from trees in the garden but there have never been any takers.

I have had up to a dozen Hoopoes at a time eating bugs off the lawn, in the autumn Stone Curlew eating leatherjackets off the lawns at night, and this summer even had an Azure-winged Magpie flying in through the kitchen window and helping himself to cat biscuits from a bowl on the work surface. But the Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Blue and Great Tits, Serin, etc will not touch anything I put out.

I can only assume that it is the year-round availability of "natural" food which is the reason. We have seeds and berries of every description during every season, and (after only one very mild frost this winter) insects galore - today I counted eight Barn Swallows feeding over the garden, zooming around between the Monarch butterflies (which breed in my garden), and not far away there are reports of Red-rumped Swallows and House Martins which have over-wintered.

A case of supply and demand I suppose; nice to have the birds here, but I would like to attract them closer for a "photo shoot".

Colin

[john robinson]

yes Colin I do put up perches - (as I said in the post last week) and the pics have yet to be posted. I've spent all the past two weeks changing and arranging perches. The whole point of the Brambling pic was the fact that was on a feeder and a first for me- on the feeder not the species !
Cheers
John

[Colin Key]

Apologies John, did not see that post but thought that that might be the case.

Saw an example on NSN recently of someone who was actually attaching very long (several metres to get within MFD) branches to his 300mm lens to act as perches!!

Colin