First notification of approaching autumn?

[old man]

A small mixed flock of about 15 tits this morning, mainly blues and greats. All over the fat balls.

[hushpower]

A wet dew in the morning tells me foxes are on the move autumns approaching 

[bluesj]

Horse chestnut leaves starting to turn brown, the heavy dew and of course mushrooms

[Down South]

Hedges red with Haw berries, winter birds will be well fed.

[sandspider]

Leaves drifting down from the poplars today, even though it's 30C!

[Smokersmith]

Seen some nice bunches of Golden Plover in the Fens … always a sign.

[ShootingEgg]

On 06/09/2023 at 15:13, old man said:

A small mixed flock of about 15 tits this morning, mainly blues and greats. All over the fat balls.

Our garden seems to only attract starlings, house sparrows and then backdoor and wood pigeon. I'd much rather finches and tits

[Miserableolgit]

Swallows gathering on the wires..

[Rim Fire]

Was sat in a highest last night and all around me was falling nuts with a lot of beachmast squirrels  everywhere 

[old'un]

58 minutes ago, ShootingEgg said:

Our garden seems to only attract starlings, house sparrows and then backdoor and wood pigeon. I'd much rather finches and tits

what you putting in your feeders?

[marsh man]

A sure sign is when I am drawing the curtains earlier and earlier each night and getting home before the soaps have finished , sadly the hours of daylight are only going in one direction from now on.   

[ShootingEgg]

5 hours ago, old'un said:

what you putting in your feeders?

All the usual, fat balls, peanuts, then mix wild bird seed etc. I'm one road away from farmland. Houses 10 up the road get all sorts yet we don't.

[old'un]

10 hours ago, ShootingEgg said:

All the usual, fat balls, peanuts, then mix wild bird seed etc. I'm one road away from farmland. Houses 10 up the road get all sorts yet we don't.

Behind the houses opposite we have a 200 acre nature reserve then farmland, we have the same as you feed wise and all the normal garden birds but very few finches, that was until about 4-5 years ago when I put out a feeder with just sunflower hearts in it, the sparrows soon found it but we did start to see the odd gold and green finch, within 6 months we were seeing half a dozen goldfinch and a couple of green finch most days, so I put up another sunflower hearts feeder half way down the garden, today we can get flocks of goldfinch numbering 20+, we also see about half a dozen green finch most days with the odd visit by a pair of bullfinch.

During the winter now we are also getting large raiding parties of long tailed tits.

It costs me a bloody fortune in bird seed and you need to keep on top of the squirrels but its nice to see so many birds in the garden, only problem is the bloody sparrow hawks and cats.

[wisdom]

I find that we get quite a few finches throughout the summer but only on the nyger seed feeder.Sparrows galore on the wild bird seed.

[pigeon controller]

On 08/09/2023 at 10:30, old'un said:

Behind the houses opposite we have a 200 acre nature reserve then farmland, we have the same as you feed wise and all the normal garden birds but very few finches, that was until about 4-5 years ago when I put out a feeder with just sunflower hearts in it, the sparrows soon found it but we did start to see the odd gold and green finch, within 6 months we were seeing half a dozen goldfinch and a couple of green finch most days, so I put up another sunflower hearts feeder half way down the garden, today we can get flocks of goldfinch numbering 20+, we also see about half a dozen green finch most days with the odd visit by a pair of bullfinch.

During the winter now we are also getting large raiding parties of long tailed tits.

It costs me a bloody fortune in bird seed and you need to keep on top of the squirrels but its nice to see so many birds in the garden, only problem is the bloody sparrow hawks and cats.

When we downsized over two years ago the previous house had mature oaks in a third of an acre. We are now in a canal side pocket garden estate backing out on to open land banked countryside in a different county. We had very little bird activity in our old house due to prolific magpie and squirrel action. The wife put up two feeders on my man cave and we have many sparrows and starlings visit who all nest in the overpriced modern houses opposite we even had a few finches and ring necked parakeets in the area.In the old house you would hear traffic noise the new house we sit in the garden having lunch with a cider and hear the birds and the rhythmic thump of the diesel barge engines as they pass.

[Scully]

Swallows now gone, so I’m assuming the warmer weather won’t be back until next year now. 

[Xtreme]

On 15/09/2023 at 08:27, Scully said:

Swallows now gone, so I’m assuming the warmer weather won’t be back until next year now. 

We still have Swallows and House Martins in Lincolnshire, i saw some yesterday evening.

Doubtless their departure is imminent however.

[marsh man]

6 hours ago, Xtreme said:

We still have Swallows and House Martins in Lincolnshire, i saw some yesterday evening.

Doubtless their departure is imminent however.

We have also got several Swallows still with us which is not that unusual in September , afterall we have just got over a record warm spell of several days of high temp's , some people might well had seen the odd one later , but I remember we were having our lunch in the estates picnic area on a very warm day in November , we had all taken our coats off as it was lovely and warm  and we had a Swallow , or Swallows as I can't remember if there was more than one flying about after the insects that were about , I wonder if any have ever been reported in staying in the UK over the Winter months , we have some very keen bird watchers on the forum so somebody might well know the answer .  MM

[old man]

23 hours ago, marsh man said:

We have also got several Swallows still with us which is not that unusual in September , afterall we have just got over a record warm spell of several days of high temp's , some people might well had seen the odd one later , but I remember we were having our lunch in the estates picnic area on a very warm day in November , we had all taken our coats off as it was lovely and warm  and we had a Swallow , or Swallows as I can't remember if there was more than one flying about after the insects that were about , I wonder if any have ever been reported in staying in the UK over the Winter months , we have some very keen bird watchers on the forum so somebody might well know the answer .  MM

Have never heard of that, possibly impossible for them to survive due to  lack of insect prey?

[marsh man]

14 hours ago, old man said:

Have never heard of that, possibly impossible for them to survive due to  lack of insect prey?

Fully agree that insect life , or the lack of it would put paid to any member of the Swallow family staying over the Winter , I recon the nearest we would get to that is they would leave it later before they returned to wherever they spend the Winter months .

One thing I did notice this Summer was the very small number of Swifts flying about , easily the least I have ever seen since my school hood days .

[Yellow Bear]

3 hours ago, marsh man said:

One thing I did notice this Summer was the very small number of Swifts flying about , easily the least I have ever seen since my school hood days

This  ^^^^^^ Not seen any this year and very low numbers of both martins and swallows

[discobob]

Just had a Blue Tit coming out of a nesting box - although the box hasn't been used this year.....

[London Best]

9 minutes ago, discobob said:

Just had a Blue Tit coming out of a nesting box - although the box hasn't been used this year.....

Catching spiders/insects?

[discobob]

20 minutes ago, London Best said:

Catching spiders/insects?

maybe

 

[old'un]

39 minutes ago, discobob said:

Just had a Blue Tit coming out of a nesting box - although the box hasn't been used this year.....

roosting.