Don’t you just love it when something unexpected turns up in your garden (and I’m definitely talking wildlife here!). All of us have a fascination with the unusual, and certainly in my garden it will cause me to dash indoors urging whoever is present to get themselves out to see the latest visitor. I thought of this when I saw this elegant girl creeping about under the feeders in the garden outside the RSPB Rye Meads visitor centre last week. The Pheasant is not something that has ever graced the Top 20 in the RSPB’s Big Garden BirdWatch, but nevertheless they do turn up in quite a number of gardens these days.Yes, much - if not most - of their reason for visiting is to mop up spilt seed underneath bird tables. But when an out-of-the-ordinary species comes to visit, there is always the chance to do a bit of swotting to find out it if there is anything you can do to entice them to stay longer. In the case of Pheasants, maybe the planting of a dense hedge or thorny shrubbery is the top option, which will give them somewhere to take cover, roost, and maybe even breed.While I have never had a Pheasant in my own garden, I almost had a Partridge last week. I was just leaving for work and there it was running down the close, a Red-legged rather than the now ever-so-threatened Grey. I can only imagine it was making a bee-line for the oasis that is my garden. It has prompted me to think of buying and planting that pear tree I’ve always promised myself. Even if I don’t get a partridge, the blossom is brilliant for spring bees and the fruit for the thrushes!
Any tales to tell of unusual visitors - bird or otherwise - to your gardens?
Are you taking advantage of the RSPB’s free wildlife gardening advice? Check out RSPB Homes for Wildlife here.
I hang various bits and pieces for the birds, some of which I deliberately hang near my kitchen window.The birds that make use of the seed, fat-balls, peanuts etc. are: Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Blue tits,Great tits, Long tailed tits, Robins, Dunnocks, Sparrows(arrived only this year and they used to be so common!), Blackbirds, Thrushes, Wrens, Greater spotted woodpecker, collared doves, Wood pidgeons, Pheasants (male and female) and last, I think, but not least, a sparrowhawk which , one time, consumed a mouse (I think) in the garden.
Through my window, I have taken lots of pictures of these beautiful creatures using my zoom lens.
Ian Mead.
At the beginning of this year I planted a wildlife garden/haymeadow in my back garden and was rewarded by a pair of red legged partridge spending the summer eating the assorted seeds from the various grasses. They also popped over the fence to visit my neighbours on occasion and gave all of us a lot of pleasure.