Thanks to a post on the RSPB Saltholme facebook page Kev and I were reminded to buy some food for birds that visit the garden. Harsh winters are not too kind to them. They have a Winter Feeding Discussion on that page for people to share garden bird feeding knowledge and experiences.
Feeding our garden birds is so important when the weather gets as bad as this. You could actually be saving lives everytime you top up your feeders or put another fatball out.
The video is shot by Kev from our living room window. I looked out the window and asked him what it was, he had no idea. Turns out the woodcock is a shy, nocturnal bird so it is rare to see one. We used the excellent RSPB bird identifier to figure out what it was.
One of the things I have enjoyed about living in Hartlepool and having a garden is learning the names of birds. Our garden gets visits from starlings and blackbirds, woodpigeons, robins and sparrows. We get loads of seagulls too. This past year we had a bunch of baby seagulls on the roof. Growing up in Brooklyn and reading a lot I could tell you that robins and sparrows are small birds…I couldn’t pick them out of a birdy line-up.
We have a friend who is really into birds. When we go out with him and his wife we look to him to help identify birds. He asks us questions like what did it look like and what did it sound like…we respond (like Mrs. Swan on Mad TV’s “he looka like a man”) it looked like a bird, it sounded like a bird.
