Long-tailed Tit
The results are in for my portion of the Big Garden Birdwatch. By the parameters used in the count (you enter the largest number of birds of a species seen at a time) I recorded 24 birds against a national average of 28. I probably undercounted the tits, because they will only visit the feeders in ones and twos, though there are others lurking in the bushes. However, I always feel it’s better to err on the conservative side.
Wood Pigeon
Here are the numbers.
Great Tit – 4
Wood Pigeon – 4
Long-tailed Tit – 3
Blackbird – 2
Robin – 2
Jackdaw – 2
Blue Tit – 2
Dunnock – 2
Magpie – 2
Blackcap – 1
Blackcap
The Blackcap is an “Unusual Bird Spot” as they ranked 31 out of 80 last year. It’s not a bad selection. We have no House Sparrows, which are the Number One bird at the moment, and we have no Starlings, but I’m not complaining. Sparrows tend to take over and Starlings just descend in large groups and force everything else away, so I’m not particularly bothered. I do, however, miss the goldfinches we used to get in profusion..
As it was, we had squirrel trouble for most of the last twenty minutes of the hour and they drove most of the birds away. My anti-squirrel campaign has been so successful that we now have two who visit together. They are interesting and acrobatic and this pair don’t do a lot of damage (as some of my previous squirrel adversaries have done), but they do need a lot of food compared to a bird and they do stop birds visiting.
Dunnock
We now have our peppermint oil, which we will be spraying round to deter rats, and will have to see if it deters squirrels too. If not, it looks like we will have to move on to chilli and more robust measures. Knocking on windows, sending Julia out and rearranging the feeders has, so far, failed to achieve any lasting deterrence.
Squirrels, Squirrels and more Squirrels . . .
Pictures are all from the Garden Birdwatch hour. The light wasn’t very good – the garden is much shadier than I realised and apart from that, my bird photography skills have deteriorated and they aren’t very good.
Great Tit
That is a very athletic and determined squirrel! No wonder they are good survivors. I hope the peppermint oil works. When I kept bees and had to deter ants, cinnamon oil was recommended to me. That seemed to work well on ants and did not seem to bother the bees. I don’t know if it would work on squirrels.
It would probably work- they do recommend changing teh smell from time to time. Eventually we will probably establish two feeding stations – one protected like Fort Knox and one to feed the squirrels. 🙂
You are gathering a rat pack
We have just bought peppermint oil as part of our anti-rat campaign. I’m sorry to hear you are having more problems, I though you’d got rid of them.
Are grey squirrels considered a noxious immigrant or have I asked that before? and where are the red squirrels? or have I asked that before?
The red squirrels are in places like the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, Lake District and Scotland. Tootlepedal recently had some pictures on his blog(within the last week, I think). Greys are noxious pests but theer is little we can do about it.
https://tootlepedal.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/plan-c/
Great squirrel shots! I hope that you don’t entirely succeed in driving them off. Good bird count.
Thank you. When we have had a bit more time we are intending to position two feeding stations – one defended and one which we will leave with access for squirrels.
Good scheme.
As ever, I’m full of good ideas. It’s the lack of execution that’s the problem.