Birds at the feeder

Hi, Margaret,
That mystery bird might be a lesser redpoll.  It is hard to tell if it is the right size, but it has a thicker body and shorter tail than the blue tit, so looks bigger.  I had a very clear look at its rosy throat this morning (your afternoon if you are in the UK).  It has no markings on its back but has a white or buff-coloured breast, and the tail is forked. 

Hope you are having a good day - it is brilliantly sunny here but a bit chilly, just above freezing.
Helen

Hi Helen,

I had a look at the lesser redpoll but the one I saw didn't have the same wing markings.  When I saw the robin yesterday it looked like the mystery bird from the back and it did have the red breast when I saw the front of it.  I'm still sticking to the mystery bird being the robin.  It has practised quite a bit to cling on to the fatball feeder and is quite adept at it now.

Hi, Margaret,
You are probably right.  It's not easy to tell the size of the birds at the feeder, but the robin would be the right size compared to the blue tit, which is all I have to go by.  And the colours aren't true (no offense, Dan!) so that the throat looks more rosy than orange, which I think it is in real life.  But birds are inventive when it comes to adapting to food sources - so if that robin is hungry it will find a way to cling to the suet to get lunch.  I once saw finches in Arizone pretending to be humming birds (very fast-winged, tiny birds) so that they could sip the nectar from the hummingbird feeder.  It was funny to watch.  They were successful for the most part, even though they were far too heavy to hover the way the h-bs do.

There certainly is lots of birdsong in the garden.  I just leave it on for entertainment, but since I don't know UK birds well, I cannot identify the songs.  But the pheasant is the same as ours, so I can hear that periodically.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/a/index.asp

Hi Helen,

The above link for the Royal Socieity for the Protectiion of Birds has the song for many British birds which might help you to identify some of what you hear on the farm.

I couldn't imagine another bird trying to do what the humming birds do;  that must have been quite a sight to see.. lol.

Thanks for this link, Margaret!  As for hummingbirds, they are simply too much!  They are tiny for one thing - you are not usre if it is a large insect or what, and their wings move so fast you cannot see them.  They have long beaks for sipping nectar, either from feeders that are sort of bottle shaped and filled with sugar and water (usually coloured red, as red attracts them - there are openings in the container shaped like red flowers through which they access the syrup) or from certain kinds of red and pink flowers which they like.  We only have one species this far north, but in places like Arizona they have several kinds.  They're fierce, though, and will attack each other with those long beaks.

Have a great day!

Margaret - just to let you know that I went into the RSPB site and signed up for their email newsletter.  I enjoyed the information on the birds I had identified at the feeder, but I am sure there are a lot singing around the farm that I have not seen or didn't take proper notice of.  But it's a terrific site.  I must check out the owls, as there were a pair around last night, very close to the feeder.  Anyway, thanks again, Helen