Feathered friends in an English country garden

TL:DR – Birds you might see or here in an English country garden. My Cambridgeshire garden ticklist is below.

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Some time ago, my dear friend and fellow bigMouth singer John Stanford asked me to put together an article for our village newsletter about the birds we are likely to see in our gardens here in South Cambridgeshire. Your mileage will vary depending on where you are in the country, what kind of habitat your garden offers, feeders you use or don’t (it’s not essential and not always recommended). But, I do have an article on how to attract more birds to your garden.

Of course, which of our feathered friends turns up in your garden is down to many different factors, the size and layout of your garden, tree and other plant species, the presence of cats, whereabouts you are relative to patches of woodland, farmland, and whether or not the visitors find a useful supply of food in the form of berries on your bushes, seed feeders and bird tables, coconut shells full of suet, and whatever else you might put out to attract them.

Some birds will arrive in great numbers to feast on fatballs for instance. Most of us have been perplexed to see expensive fatballs disappear in a matter of minutes when a flock of starlings turn up. Other food, such as nyjer seeds in a specialist feeder will draw in Goldfinches and occasionally for some Redpolls. Sunflowers seeds with the husk intact, sometimes referred to as black sunflower hearts, will keep Greenfinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, and Long-tailed Tits busy, and if the nyjer seeds run out the Goldfinches too.

Robins, Blackbirds, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves, Dunnocks, will spend much of their time pecking around under the feeders, although the Blackbirds will join Mistle and Song Thrushes plucking insects from the lawn. And, Thrushes will famously grab snailshells and smash them on the ground to get at the occupant. If it’s very cold out on the farmland, the winter thrushes – the Fieldfares and Redwings – will come into the warmer more urban areas and attempt to snaffle berries from your bushes and trees much to the consternation of the Blackbirds who will attempt to make them flee.

You might also spot Bramblings during the winter. They are another finch resembling the Chaffinch but brighter and more orange colours. I have heard from people living on the edge of our village who see them in their gardens occasionally, but they are more likely to be elsewhere.

Unusual but increasingly common in the winter are Blackcaps, a type of warbler normally considered a summer visitor, but turning up in our gardens from Germany and Eastern Europe rather than heading to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. Speaking of summer, by the time you read this birds that you might see above your garden or heading into your eaves may have started to arrive: House Martins first, then the Swallows that don’t necessarily a summer make, and finally the Swifts. Listen out for Cuckoos too. Certainly, houses on the edge of our local village green backing on to farmland have regular cuckoos visiting for the breeding season.

If you have ants among your plants, you might see Green Woodpeckers, also known as Yaffles for their scoffing call in flight. Ants are the staple diet of yaffles, so hold off the powder if you want to see them pecking at the ground in your garden. And, speaking of woodpeckers, there are quite a few Great Spotted Woodpeckers around, which will often come to garden feeders. Of course, if you’re attracting lots of small songbirds to your garden you might also attract predators including Sparrowhawks and less obviously egg-eating Magpies, and chick-chomping Jays. Great Spotted Woodpeckers will also peck into birdboxes to eat baby Blue Tits and the like.

Here’s our garden ticklist of the 70 species we’ve noted sight or sound) during the last quarter of a century, in, over, or very close to our small, relatively “sub-rural” garden:

UPDATE: Early Feb 24 – Merlin picked up a Tree Sparrow and another Hawfinch. I can hear what sounds like the Tree Sparrow on the recording.

UPDATE: Early Jan 24 – Merlin app heard a Black Redstart and days later a Ring-necked Parakeet

UPDATE: Late Oct/Nov 2023 – Merlin app App picking up the sound of Grey Wagtail, Brambling, Ringed Plover, Raven, Waxwing, Marsh Harrier, Meadow Pipit, Barn Owl, Reed Bunting, and Yellow-legged Gull from the garden/house. 67 species.

UPDATE: 2 August 2023 – Mrs Sciencebase spotted a Whitethroat briefly touching down on the previously mentioned front garden firethorn. 57 species.

UPDATE: As of April 2023, 56 species, with a Spoonbill flying past the house quickly at 3-4m above the roofline at about 3pm on 18th. Very surprising!

I could add a lot of other birds to this list if I were to consider my village sightings rather than just my garden sightings: Little Owl, Great White Egret, Kingfisher, Little Stint, Little Ringed Plover, Teminck’s Stint, White Stork etc many of which on the Cottenham Lode or flooded areas of local farmland.

Check out my tongue-in-beak birding glossary here.