Saturday 29 October 2016

There are hardly any birds coming to the bird tables at the moment. It seems that the plentiful supply of beech nuts are keeping lots of the birds happy as these photos of a jay and a hawfinch show. The hawfinch sat in the tree with the beech nut in his beak for 10 minutes or so. I'm not sure why.

These photos of a treecreeper on our hawthorn were really tricky. The light was poor and I had to switch to manual focus to avoid the surrounding branches pulling the focus off. Manual focus on my camera is extremely difficult when I can't even manually focus my eyes properly anymore, so I'm quite surprised that these came out OK.

Jay with Beech nuts, Christophstal October 2016

Jay with Beech nuts, Christophstal October 2016

Hawfinch with Beech nuts, Christophstal October 2016

Hawfinch with Beech nuts, Christophstal October 2016

Treecreeper, Christophstal October 2016

Treecreeper, Christophstal October 2016

Treecreeper, Christophstal October 2016

Treecreeper, Christophstal October 2016

Friday 28 October 2016
<em>Coprinopsis erythrocephala</em>? Christophstal October 2016

Coprinopsis erythrocephala? Christophstal October 2016

<em>Coprinopsis erythrocephala</em>? Christophstal October 2016

Coprinopsis erythrocephala? Christophstal October 2016

Some impressive mushrooms have sprouted on our driveway. The cows spread their manure liberally here a few weeks back so I'm assuming these are in the Coprinus family. My guess is Coprinopsis erythrocephala which doesn't appear to have an English name but is the Rotbestäubter Tintling in German. The mushrooms deliquesced to an inky black quite slowly and were only really completely blackened by Sunday evening. 

Sunday 23 October 2016

There was a sharp frost last night and this has already made the autumn colours come out.

The first photo today is of a blackbird amongst the hornbeam seeds. We've already seen a few hawfinches, but judging by the amount of hornbeam seeds there are, we're going to see quite a few more soon.

Several large flocks of birds flew over the valley today, east to west. They've clearly had enough.

There's still plenty to see though. Today, there were large flocks of long-tailed tits and siskins flying around. The long-tailed tits spent a long time in our maple. I think I was unfair to this tree in spring when I said it only looked good for one day a year. Well today it looked spectacular - so that's two days. It made for some nice photos of the long-tailed tits.

The tree, where this siskin is sitting, is still green, but there are hardly any hawthorn berries left after the blackbirds have cleared the hawthorn.

Blackbird in hornbeam, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird in hornbeam, Christophstal October 2016

Long-tailed tit in maple, Christophstal October 2016

Long-tailed tit in maple, Christophstal October 2016

Long-tailed tit in maple, Christophstal October 2016

Long-tailed tit in maple, Christophstal October 2016

Siskin, Christophstal October 2016

Siskin, Christophstal October 2016

Saturday 22 October 2016
Bark beetle excavations, Christophstal October 2016

Bark beetle excavations, Christophstal October 2016

Bark beetle exit holes, Christophstal October 2016

Bark beetle exit holes, Christophstal October 2016

Caterpillar on lettuce, Christophstal October 2016

Caterpillar on lettuce, Christophstal October 2016

Caterpillar on lettuce, Christophstal, October 2016

Caterpillar on lettuce, Christophstal, October 2016

Blackbird eating hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird eating hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird eating hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird eating hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

Adolescent bullfinch, Christophstal October 2016

Adolescent bullfinch, Christophstal October 2016

Black redstart with autumn colours, Christophstal October 2016

Black redstart with autumn colours, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

Magpie, Christophstal October 2016

There are a lot of photos today. I'm catching up with some I took earlier in the week.

The first couple show a piece of bark I found while out on a run. There's a lot of bark lying around where the foresters have been cutting trees and they all show these bark beetle excavations. I'd presumed that the decision on which trees chosen to be cut down was based on purely commercial considerations, but as the second photo shows, the exit holes that the beetles make as they leave the tree give a good sign that there's an infestation. So maybe the foresters are basing their decision on that?

The second couple of photos are of a really nice caterpillar that Christine found in her lettuce - just as she was about to eat it. My fault - I thought I'd washed it thoroughly. Anyway, no harm done and he is thriving on the rest of the lettuce as neither of us want to risk eating any more of it. I suspect this is the caterpillar of the scarce bordered straw - a known pest of salads and foodstuffs. I think he's rather beautiful and I'm going to try to breed him through.

Today, I got some more photos of blackbirds eating hawthorn berries. I was hoping that I might see a redwing, but the blackbirds have nearly eaten all the berries now, so the chances are diminishing.

I'm taking regular photos of this bullfinch to chart his transition to full manhood.

There were several black redstarts flying around today. This male caught my eye as his tail was the exact same colour as the autumn leaves.

Finally, three photos of a magpie. We don't see these too often in the garden. I know nobody seems to like them, but this one looked rather elegant. I was trying to photograph the blue and green irridescence of his feathers - you can see it in the first and last photo.

Saturday 15 October 2016

It was a nice, mild autumnal day. After some gardening in the morning, we spent a few hours watching the birds and were rewarded with some of our winter visitors like goldcrest, hawfinch and siskin.

There were several chiffchaffs about and they were a lot more tolerant of us watching than they normally are which afforded lots of good photo opportunities.

I've been trying to get a photo of blackbirds eating the hawthorn berries and after a lot of patience I managed a few today. Pity this individual was a bit ratty.

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Hawfinch, Christophstal October 2016

Hawfinch, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird, Christophstal October 2016

Blackbird, Christophstal October 2016

Sunday 9 October 2016
Owl pellet, Christophstal September 2016

Owl pellet, Christophstal September 2016

This photo is an old one I forgot to put up in September. We were putting the bird perches back up after the last visit of the cows and we found a couple of owl pellets underneath one of them. These were interesting as they contained a lot of scales - either from a lizard, snake or fish.

Saturday 8 October 2016

First thing this morning, I was convinced I'd seen a yellow-browed warbler in the hawthorn. I got a really good look at it through the binoculars. I ran upstairs to photograph it, but I only managed to take one really grainy shot before it flew off. It was barely light when I took the photo so I'm amazed I got anything. Even so, I'm not sure this is a photo of same bird I saw through the binoculars - it looks more like a firecrest. Sadly, I don't get to record a new species without better proof.

One migrant we did see today for the first time this Autumn/Winter is this brambling - a couple of weeks earlier than we had last year.

I finally got a decent photo of a robin. For some reason I've not managed it before now even though they are regulars in the garden.

Yellow-browed Warbler? Christophstal October 2016

Yellow-browed Warbler? Christophstal October 2016

Brambling, Christophstal October 2016

Brambling, Christophstal October 2016

Robin, Christophstal October 2016

Robin, Christophstal October 2016

Monday 4 October 2016
Marsh tit in Hawthorn, Christophstal October 2016

Marsh tit in Hawthorn, Christophstal October 2016

Chaffinch amongst apples, Christophstal October 2016

Chaffinch amongst apples, Christophstal October 2016

Greenfinch amongst hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

Greenfinch amongst hawthorn berries, Christophstal October 2016

It was a public holiday in Germany today and there were plenty of opportunities to take nice autumnal photos with birds amongst the hawthorn berries and apples.

Sunday 2 October 2016

After yesterday's amazing count of 21 bird species, today was back down to earth. A mere 17 species.

It started so well. I woke up and saw a little insect on the ceiling above my head and thought it looked interesting. This is micro moth, Caloptilia stigmatella, which overwinters as an adult so had probably come into our bedroom to hibernate. I put him outside to find another place to stay.

<em>Caloptilia stigmatella</em>, Christophstal October 2016

Caloptilia stigmatella, Christophstal October 2016

Saturday 1 October 2016
Great spotted woodpecker and chaffinch, Christophstal October 2016

Great spotted woodpecker and chaffinch, Christophstal October 2016

Female blackcap, Christophstal October 2016

Female blackcap, Christophstal October 2016

Male blackcap, Christophstal October 2016

Male blackcap, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Chiffchaff, Christophstal October 2016

Potter wasp mud filling, Christophstal October 2016

Potter wasp mud filling, Christophstal October 2016

Dunnock, Christophstal October 2016

Dunnock, Christophstal October 2016

Wren, Christophstal October 2016

Wren, Christophstal October 2016

I spent a considerable time today trying out new photographic techniques on the birds around the house. The light was poor so it was a good day for practice without the pressure of expecting success.

The chaffinches and greenfinches have been extremely aggressive with each other and with other birds recently. I was surprised when a chaffinch flew at a great spotted woodpecker and chased him off.

It was also a surprise to see a pair of blackcaps. I know these are short distance migrants so they tend to stay around longer than the other migrants, but I still thought they would have gone by now.

The same is true for chiffchaffs - there were several around today, also being aggressive with birds very much larger than themselves. My photos show their bright yellow feet which I've not noticed before.

We've had a couple of dunnocks around for the last few weeks. We don't usually see them perched in the tree - they're usually hopping about under the birdtables.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a potter wasp filling in the gaps between our shingles with mud. I finally got around to taking a photo of this today.

Finally, we had a rare visit from a wren. I saw him a couple of days ago, but today I managed to photograph him.