Bird List

Here is a list of all the birds I have seen in our Hillingdon garden (the swifts were over it, of course). It doesn't match the list of 36 different species noted by my sister in her garden in Cumbria, but it's certainly not bad. A few years ago we noted a pair of Hen Harriers which were frequently glimpsed flying over the fields beyond the garden. We kept shtum, but twitchers eventually found them and now we haven't seen any for three or four years.

There is a local buzzard who wheels majestically over. You always know he or she is around when the sky and garden are suddenly bare of birds. We had to dismantle the newly erected bird table due to lightning attacks from the sparrowhawk. We have also had to cover the pond with netting since the heron took the only silver fish, the one it could see glinting in the moonlight at 1.30 am as it sat watching from the roof of the house. I never knew they were nocturnal birds. The jays are around a lot at the moment. One is copying the squirrel's method of swinging the peanut feeder until food falls out, whereupon it jumps to the ground and eats it.

The wood pigeons are sitting on a branch of the oak tree, billing and cooing. It's so sweet to watch them rubbing beaks and nibbling at each other. The blackbirds appear to have sorted out their territorial disputes and now just one pair appears regularly in the garden whereas before there were five birds, three males and two females. I hope the lone male has found a mate. I also hope last year's lone thrush, whose mate was killed by a cat (perhaps even ours), will find a mate and successfully breed this year.

Blackbird Collared Dove Crow Dunnock Goldfinch Greenfinch

Heron Jay Magpie

Pied Flycatcher Pied Wagtail Ring-Necked Parakeet Robin

Song Thrush Sparrow Sparrowhawk Starling Swift

Tits: Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-Tailed Tit, Coal Tit

Woodpeckers, Green and Great Spotted Wood Pigeon - also Town Pigeon and crossbreeds

Wren Yellowhammer