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Don't have any waxwings but am lucky to have Long tailed tits, blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, greenfinches, coal tits, starlings (who doesn't), house sparrows, dunnocks. However, on one occasion I had a blackcap. It didn't come onto the feeding station but started pecking at leaves. Any ideas? Also, are blackcaps unusual garden visitors?

I saw Waxwings - back in 1963 when as a child,our garden was visited by these exotic birds.They stayed for about 3 days,about 30 of them,stripping the crabapple tree bare.Our garden was then also full of 'Twitchers' & TV crew as well ! The other thing I remember very vividly was they seemed amazingly tame,they wernt threatned at all by the 'curious child' sat beneath the tree they were feeding on - An unforgetable memory & the start of a'lifelong' passion for birds...

I've been an avid viewer of your program for years, today (01/11/10) in my garden I spotted an unusual bird and after identifying it on the excellent rspb sight, I found it was a whimbrel and seeing that they are rare I thought I would share the info so I hope this helps.

I feel so very lucky to have wondrful bird spotting opportunities in and around my back garden. Friday was extremely fruitful, I have quite a few feeders right at the bottom of the garden which overlooks an old disused railway cutting...... Already this Autumn we have had Great tits, Blue tits, Long tailed tits, Coal tits, Marsh tits, Goldfinches, Chaffinches, House and Tree sparrows, Robins and a very beautiful Bullfinch (although he is proving rather shy!) The Starlings are very regular visitors and so entertaining along with quite probably the fattest wood pigeon ever! We also have a Greater Spotted woodpecker but he too isn't quite brave enough to venture down for the odd monkey nut, he knows they are there however!
On top of all these little garden beauties we are also so very priviliged to see regular fly overs from a sparrowhawk, buzzards, kestrel and as far as I can tell a hobby...... And all this in a very modest little patch right in the very heart of Stoke-on-trent, I feel like we have our very own little reserve right on our doorstep, it's brilliant!

I was also wondering if we would ever be likely to see Waxwings in the midlands........ I would LOVE to see them!

I have a suburban garden. I am 13 and me and my family have found joy in watching more and more birds and wildlife come to feed or drink in our garden.

Frogs and larvae live in our pond,
House Sparrows, Greenfinches, Goldfinches,robins, chaffinches, siskins, Blackbirds , starlings, wood pigeons, dunnocks, blackcaps, a Goldcrest!! blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, & song thrushes are the birds I can remember that have visited our little garden to feed on our feeders, and bathe and drink from our bath and pond.

A hedgehog visits to eat the peanuts, and we have made a 'hibernation corner' in our garden, in hope that he/she will hibernate there this winter.
I planted more bulbs than I can remember in october, in hope that they will grow in spring.

we also have wood mice and a regular Grey Squirrel that we love to bits, named Graham .

we put a nest box up and blue tits and sparrows have been roosting in it.

Our garden is constantly moving. There's very rarely no birds in the garden. Our garden backs onto woodland so we get a huge variety wildlife passing through. Yesterday a sparrowhawk swooped out of the trees and across the gardens towards the railway. This morning I came downstairs and it was stood in the middle of our lawn looking straight at me. It hadn't caught anything but the budgies in our aviary were frozen. Some were hanging from perches or the ceiling and playing at the time and just froze completely on the spot. It stared at me for about 30 seconds before it took off without warning up into the woods beyond the fence.

Last week we had a nuthatch and a willow warbler in the garden for the first time ever. We'd seen them elsewhere but never in our garden.

Forgot the buzzard. A pair live in some trees on the other side of the road behind the woods behind our house. We often see them from the road, perched on the fence surrounding the field or in the dead tree at the back of the field. 2 weeks ago the usual group of collared doves and wood pigeons were sat on the telegraph wire that runs across the front of the woods. They all suddenly took off and scattered in all directions. Seconds later an enormous buzzard swooped down over the house and along the edge of the treeline almost at eye level with me. I was stood in the conservatory at the time watching some long-tailed tits that were feeding in the garden. It took me completely by surprise as I'd never seen a buzzard so close or in such detail. You could just about count the number of feathers on it's head!

Would anybody believe it? We have 8 brand new ducklings that hatched yesterday and are therefore the All-Saints-Brood!

I have just filmed a sparrowhawk for about thirty minutes eating a collard dove in our garden variously watched by a squirrel, a cock phesant and other smaller birds. I have the film on a compact disk but it is Giga bytes long. It is in Sonys VOB file format. I have no idea how to edit it to reduce it in length nor how to change it to another format that you might prefer. If I send it to Autmnwatch will you be interested in viewing it and seeing if there is any of it suitable for family viewing. Its a bit gory. I also have another longish film of two cock pheasants sparring through the garden -a fight which went on for about an hour during which they were pretty well oblivious to the human following them about though I filmed much less than that. [Personal details removed by Moderator]

15 gold finch 4bluetit 2great tit 10sprrows and starlings robin, apair of dunnnock pair blackbird, 2wrens cox chaffinch, greenfinch 4 collared dove,

I really enjoy Autumn and Spring watch.
My husband and I were walking in the Wye Valley a month ago and when we sat down for lunch a samll dragonfly with a tan coloured tail landed on his hand and we could actually hear it cruching an insect. it then spat out 2 bits of black on my husband's hand. What an honour!

When i saw episode 1 of Autumn Watch i was astonished that Mark had never seen a urban Badger, and that a lady fed them right out side her home. i have been feeding badgers and fox's in my garden for about a year now, every night i put out dog biscuits and tinned dog meat and every night around 10.30 a badger copmes and eats about half of the amount of biscuits i put out, once he is done and has waddled off a pair of fox's come and eat the left over biscuits and meat. My garden is about 1 meter away from my home and i sit and watch them from my living room window every night, and on occasion my daughter sits at the window and talks to the badger, and he/she is not bothered by it.

Who is likely to be eating the goldfish in our garden pond? We have had a heron (harnser) visit but seen it of late. However I understood that they swallowed their catch whole, whereas our visitor is leaving scales on the side of the pond (or on our patio) and on one occasion a half-eaten fish. A friend suggested an otter, but we are not close to a river.

We would love to catch it in the act to find out what it is!

On 1st November I removed a few plants from our pond as it was far too overcrowded I carefully checked them to make sure no wildlife was hiding in them and discovered to newt tadpoles one only had a long body/tail but the other had it's front legs too. Are these late for this year or early for next year?

I had a tiny Goldcrest fly at my lounge window last week it was lying on the ground under the window so I carefully picked it up to give it some warmth and slowly it came round .I dripped dew drops from leaves into its beak and it was eventualy able to keep up right holding onto a tiny branch . It made a full recovery and flew off . I assum it had become disorientated after a long flight across the north sea ( I live approx 15 miles inland from the north coast )It didnt seem possible for such a small bird to survive a migration over such a long distance . Am I correct about this or could it have been a UK bird migrating south? I have never had a Goldcrest in my garden before .

its a bit confusing in the garden today.
the forsythia has flowers on it,the roses have buds bursting and a songthrush was singing all morning.

i wonder if their are historical documents etc that refere to out of season happenings such as these.or is it a sign of our times and will get more mixed up?

nice to hear the thrush at any time.

I emptied and cleaned my four nestboxes this week and in one found a dead tree sparrow on the great tit's nest. The great tit chicks had fledged but found it baffling as to why the tree sparrow adult was there.

There has been an early spring battle over the nest box with last year's owners (the blue tits) being gazumped by the great tits while the tree sparrows failed to put in a solid offer.

I'll post my nest pics on flickr

Hi everyone, over the past 10 years we have had lots of different animals in our garden from frogs to hedgehogs, polecats, grey hern, buzzards, waxwings (only once on new years day 2 years ago), field mice, all the usual garden birds and 2 very special collared doves that are here every day. Our biggest problem recently has been very very large foxes. They keep coming back in to our garden each night even though we leave no food out at night and they are not going to our bins, recently they have been lurking below our trees and we have a small yorkshire terrier that we are getting very concerned about when letting her out. These foxes are huge and our dog wouldn't stand a chance against a them. They look well fed and we are pretty sure the den is behind our graden in quite a medium sized gathering of trees and bushes. They enter and leave at the exact same bit of our fence and can clear it with no effort. Our dog is starting to sense something isn't right and we can tell that she isn't 100% comfortable in her own garden. We know it isn't common for foxes to attack dogs but they are just getting a bit too close for comfort!! Our fear is that they startle each other and both think they have to defend and end up fighting, terrifying thought. Can anyone give advice on how to keep them out of your garden?!?!?!?! We are very big animal lovers and would never want to cause any harm, we are just looking for ways to protect out pet and deter unwanted visitors! Help!!

I've seen waxwings walking my dog in Ely, Cambridgeshire. I think I may have even seen one in my garden. I had never seen one before and didn't know what it was until I saw Autumnwatch, thank you for solving a niggling little puzzle for me.

WEDNESDAY 2ND NOVEBMBER AT 8AM WENT INTO BACK GARDEN AFTER HEARING ODD
TRILLING NOISE TO FIND FLOCK OF APPROX. 70 WAXWINGS RESTING IN OUR ASH
TREE, ONLY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE THANKS TO AUTUMNWATCH LAST WEEK. THEY
STOPPED FOR ABOUT ONE HOUR, FANTASTIC SITE.

LAVDIVS

Why won't the birds come to our garden? We regularly put fresh assortments of seed, mealworms, fat balls, water etc, but we only occasionally get starlings and pigeons. The sparrows, tits and robins that are in the area just pass us by.

Yesterday at dusk I saw a small ball of starlings with our resident pair of buzzards flying underneath. Do buzzards take birds on the wing or is there some other explanation?

Just as a follow up to an Autumn Watch programme a couple of weeks ago my wife was looking out into our back garden and saw a squirrel with a mouse in it's mouth disappearing through our back fence. I know we have mice in the rocks around a garden pool but don't know if it was carrion or live when the squirrel took it.
Also I was watching from the same view and I am convinced a Sparrow Hawk (a frequent beautiful visitor) swooped into the garden attracted by two metal birds which were 'flying' on pivoted pole and did a quick about turn when it was about 2m away and doubled back quite acrobatically and landed on top of our bird feeder. Anybody else experience anything like that? cheers Kevin Byrne

We have a sparrow hawk that visits our garden. It chases wood pigeons into the double glazing then plucks and eats them this year he has chased three leaving their imprints on the window but we think he or she has only been successful once (today) at 12:30 04/11/2010 is this usual behaviour or learned. picture on yahoo flickr.

I have a question I have posed on the boards before but never really got a satisfactory answer and wondered if anyone has any insights?

I have a wildlife friendly garden that backs onto woodland with a wide range of visitors of all kinds. I have a large local corvid population, including nesting Carrion Crows, colonies of Jackdaws and Rooks, and a lot of Magpies, even the occasional Jay and Raven will pass through. But in a change to the usual story why do my corvids NOT seem to be interested in attacking local nests and fledglings?

I watch my local patch very closely and inspite of having blackbirds, robins, dunnocks, blue tits and blackcaps nesting, the blue tits especially in a worrying exposed place, I have noticed with increasing interest over the last few years that no nest has been raided to my knowledge, and when the fledglings are about, I've never seen or heard one attacked. I even witnessed this spring a couple of Magpies regularly feeding alongside a Blackbird family when the fledglings couldn't fly yet, and not only did they not attack, the parents who normally alarm call at a puff of wind, were completely relaxed and did not attempt to mob the Magpies or alarm call.

What is going on? It's not as if they're not fiesty in other situations, they certainly go for each other and the local raptors.
I know that corvids regularly take fledglings and attack nests elsewhere, so why not mine? Are they just a bunch of hippies, or is there a more scientific reason for their apparently peaceful co existence?

please can you tell me when do hedgehogs hibernate, last nite we had 1 in our garden and i thought that they should be sleeping now. thank you . yoyo

We usually have a good range of birds vsiting our feeders in the back garden - such as goldfinch, siskin, & longtailed tits, in addition to the usual varieties. However this year our feeders are for the first time attracting rats. We don't like to put poison or traps out because of the birds,the field mice and also the frogs which live in our garden pond. Can anyone recommend a way of getting rid of them so we can enjoy watching the birds?

I've just been watching Autumnwatch about Blackbirds, I love these birds and always wondered where they went to after breeding in the summer,you said that when they come back here that they are not the same Blackbirds but i'm sure I get the same pair back in October as the female sits on my windowsill 'tutting' for sultanas which I've always given them and she is always with a male and brings her babies here til they are old enough to fend for themselves,do pairs of Blackbirds mate for life?...they are beautiful birds! thankyou.

I have had 2 unusual sights in my garden this week. On Tuesday a beautiful male pheasant spent about an hour in the garden. On Wednesday I had Goldfinches on the niger seed feeder, suddenly one of the regular robins attacked the goldfinch and even had its feathers in its mouth. Every time the goldfinches try to return to the feeder the robin chased them away ferociously.I know that robins are territorial but they have never attacked any of the tits or other small birds before. The robins do not even feed on the niger seed feeder, why would this have happened?

I found the entrails of an animal (looked like stomach etc.) all complete in a pile about
9" long by 6 inches wide - no fur or feathers near or any other part of animal - what do you think this was or who killed the animal. We live in a rural area in West Sussex and to-day I saw a large fox in the garden. There is also a badger set about half a mile away. There are deer also. Any ideas?

Hi. Is it really worth feeding garden birds with black sunflower seeds?
Nuts, fat and nyger seeds get eaten on the spot, but most of the smaller sunflower seeds are rejected and tossed on the ground (especially by nuthatches). The rest seem to be taken away and stuffed in our pots of seeds, nooks and crannies in house rendering, cracks between paving slabs etc.
In the space of 10 minutes just now, I watched a pair of coal tits make over 20 trips to the feeder and fly back to wedge sunflower seeds among our garden plants almost at my feet, in one case less than a yard away from me.
Surely the birds never find them again? We have sunflower seedlings everywhere!

I don't have any wax wings either, but I am very lucky with the often sightings of goldfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, house sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, greenfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, crows, the greater spotted woodpecker, and a bit more that I can't remember!
I am hoping for a camera for christmas, and if I get any good snaps I will be sending them in!

Bye for now!

Amy

We have been feeding garden birds for years and were saddened to hear about the trichomoniasis affecting the greenfinches. We have disinfected our feeders but today have seen only one goldfinch at the feeder instead of the usual 4 to 6. A few days ago we had seen one poorly looking goldfinch at the feeder, it just sat there all afternoon alternately sleeping and feeding, so we were suspicious that it may have contracted the dreaded trichomoniasis. We have not had so many greenfinches at the feeders this autumn but this is the first time we have seen a decline in the goldfinches. We have also seen one greenfinch poorly and one dead in the garden.

Hi all,

Two unusual occurances this week in my garden.

Firstly a visit from what appeared to be a (predominantly) white blackbird. It had some black streaks, was the usual size with an orange beak. Unfortunately I don't have a photo but would appreciate any possible explanations.

Secondly despite the recent frosts have just seen a red admiral butterfly enjoying the late autumn sunshine. Isn't it a bit late for butterflies?

Best wishes

D

we have bird feeders in our garden and we had a visitor which happened to be a great spotted woodpecker which we have not come across before as we are not close to any woodland.

janet isaac peterborough.

Dear Autumnwatch team

Each winter for the past 5 years our garden in Truro has been visited by a rather handsome blackbird we have called Streaky.



As you can see from the very poor photograph (sorry Chris) Streaky has 2 distinctive white feathers in his tail and it is this distinction that has enabled us to recognise him each year. So in the intrest of migratory research I was hoping that one of your northern Autumnwatch viewers might recognise him as a summer visitor to their garden. I would love to know whose worms Streaky eats when he's not eating ours!

Thank you

PS. Chris, Bobby Gillespie? better drummer than a singer?

Hi Autumnwatch,
we have had an army of starlings in our garden since about May and they're still here now. There aren't so many now but there are still far too many than I would like. They do rather come down altogether like a tornado or something. Having so many scared off the other birds that we had which was such a shame. The baby starlings were cute and watching the starlings having a rest on the lawn was funny which I have photos of. At the moment we only have blue tits, great tits,coal tits sometimes, ALOT of house sparrows, 2 chaffinches arrived yesterday and today,robbins (one of them is very nasty), collared doves, wood pigeons, dunnocks. How much longer will I have all these starlings? As soon as they come down, all the other birds fly away. (No one could possibly say that starlings or house sparrows are declining in Kent!) Best wishes, Liz

Was in shock this morning when I woke up to around 100 waxwings on a berry tree in my back garden. Never ever have I seen these birds in this region. (SW Scotland) not in these numbers anyway.
Is it the wind direction that is bringing them this way as it is easterly just now ?????