There's a lovely thrush in the garden

[Amber]

The little owls are good because they aren't nocturnal. We set up a camera and filmed them fledging a few years ago. The BBC sent a courier over for the footage which they screened. Then we had them asking to come and set up camp here to film. We said no. Samlet,if you take your children and sit outside at night you might be able to hear tawny owls hooting or barn owls screeching...maybe when the weather warms up a bit. If you are not in owl territory try your local wildlife trust- they often organsise night walks where not only will you hear owls but also see bats (we have a bat detector- good present for kids) and possibly badgers too.

[mike1880]

I worked from home quite a bit last spring/summer, there's a lot to see even in a suburban B'ham garden. Lots of blue/great/coal t its (at least two of the three but not sure which...), an occasional green woodpecker, jays, the odd heron flying over looking for fishponds and one pair of something that I couldn't identify at all (nondescript brown spotty things about starling size, def not thrushes). The absolute highlight was a sparrowhawk, I had no idea we had anything like that in the area.

[scary mum]

Who knew how many twitchers there were on EPE! We may need a new section for it . I think the Chiltern Open Air Museum do Owl walks - or at least they have in the past.

[Samlet]

Do you get owls in towns?

[Amber]

Do you get owls in towns?

It's not unheard of, but they do like trees to live in so the more trees, the more likely.

[Sally-Anne]

I did wonder whether my t it's would be edited!

It's automatic, I'm afraid, for obvious reasons.

We have a lovely pair of blue t_its in our nesting box. I have been trying to find out if Red Kites (absolutely everywhere in the Chilterns) will attack smaller birds - I assume they will if food is scarce.

Several different owls, but no idea what they are. I must learn to identify them from their calls. We also have a heron that visits regularly and I have no idea where he is a refugee from.

A couple of summers ago we had a cockatiel, obviously another refugee from somewhere!

Too many magpies for there to be a lot of small birds. We do have jackdaws nesting in two of the chimneys every year though. They must be the noisiest birds on earth.

[scary mum]

Strictly speaking red kites are carrion feeders, S-A (dregs up memeories of DS's school project), but they will eat small animals if they are hungry - don't know about other birds though. I love watching them circling round. Someone near us regularly puts out food (raw chicken mainly) for them (the neighbours aren't too happy), so we get loads of them.

[scarlett]

We always have sparrows, robins and blue t its nesting in the same places every year....I suppose they are the babies returning? We have put some new boxes up this year and it's exciting to see birds checking them out. During the snow we suddenly had an influx of pigeons, about six of them now spend their day getting a bit too close to the dog. They certainly aren't grammar material. We also have trouble with magpies. Last year a couple swooped on a nest and there was a horrific noise as what seemed like hundreds of birds flew out of the trees, screaming and managed to see them off. My favourite bird is the gold finch and the lady and gentleman pheasant who like to sit in our bushes.

[Reading Mum]

There is quite often a red kite circling over the back garden. We get lots of t_its, mostly long tailed which are fun to watch. A green woodpecker visits sometimes along with a couple of Jays. We had a gold finch last week too but that's rare here. Plenty of robins which are getting pretty good at eating from the hanging feeders - the dog destroyed the ground feeder after hoovering all the food on it
Not in the back garden but nearby, we have seen a kingfisher several times now by the university campus lake.

[Pumpkin Pie]

Just had a lovely squirrel sitting on my garden chair, peering in at me in the kitchen. Then two lovely Jays popped by. They are frequent visitors, and always come together!