Last week I blogged about our two smallest bird species, the Goldcrest and the Firecrest, this week in part two I will look at the small visitors you may see during visits to your local nature reserve, or if you’re very lucky, your own bird table.
One you could very well see over the coming months is the Brambling. This year seems to be an irruption year for them. Bird irruptions occur when a certain species moves or migrates in unusually large numbers. This is usually because of a normal food shortage in their traditional ranges, or the case of our winter migrants, the edges of their migration locations suffering adverse weather conditions. This pushes the birds to migrate further and become more localised, with the United Kingdom being an island, it works as a wonderful catchment area for these displaced birds. Irruptions of Waxwings occur fairly frequently, with a spectacularly large irruption occurring in the winter 2010. All indications so far in 2012 are suggesting it will be a quiet year for Waxwings again, with sightings confined to the north and east coasts, but they are about. Last winter was a quiet year for Bramblings, and I only had a handful of recorded sightings in my garden, but this year I have already had a pair of males feeding on the bird table. They seem to be arriving in large numbers from the accounts I have seen.
The Brambling is about the size and shape of a Chaffinch, and they tend to feed together as the finches start to form communal groups. They can be confused with a Chaffinch to the unwary birdwatcher, but their breast is far more orange in colour than the Chaffinch, which is rosy-pink in colour. The next easy ID indicator for you to check for is the bill. Chaffinches have a dull pink bill, whereas the Brambling is yellow. Both are seed feeders, and can usually be seen mopping up spillages under the bird feeders. Bramblings to me are the epitome of autumn; their wonderful russet colours remind me of the changing colours of our trees at this time of year. If you are lucky enough to live near any area of woodland, there is a fairly high degree of chance you will be these two wonderful finches on your bird feeders at some point during the cold winter months.
A recent addition to the garden visitors list is the Siskin. This small finch closely resembles a canary, and can be easily spotted in your garden due to its bright yellow colouring. The male sports a black cap, whereas the female tends to be striped, and slightly duller/ greyer in colour. They seem to have taken a liking to Nyger seeds and can quite often be found where there is population of Goldfinches. Siskins are resident to the UK, but their numbers increase for the next couple of weeks as they migrate from their northern ranges to warmer climes.
The final bird you may see over the coming months may surprise you. It certainly surprised me when it first turned up here a couple of years ago. Those of you who visit wetlands regularly may be familiar with the sights of Reed Buntings flitting through the vegetation, but over recent years they have started to move into our gardens as our love affair with feeding our own wildlife grows. I have been fortunate enough to have small numbers of these buntings feeding on my lawn over the past few winters. The males have wonderfully black capped head, but I have a bit of soft spot for the females. It’s another one of those birds described as a “little brown job”, but in honesty it is not a dull bird at all. Their wonderfully streaked head with a prominent eye stripe and lovely chestnut brown plumage makes it a joy to watch as it feeds from the lawn.
I hope you enjoyed this little journey through your small winter visitors. It’s time to keep your eyes peeled and binoculars ready in the back garden or whilst you are out and about. You never know what may turn up for a well-earned meal.
Whilst driving back from Newport Wetlands yesterday I am fairly sure I saw a Goldcrest or who knows, possibly another Miskin Firecrest (it was impossible to ID the crest colour whilst sitting in the traffic jam) flitting from the dual carriageway to the nearby cemetery, it looks like my “Regulus magnet” was working again!
© All Images Anthony Walton