Birds on Skye

I enjoy bird song, and like to watch our garden birds, but I am far from being a fanatic, and struggle to identify any feathered friend which is 'out of the ordinary'. Serious bird people should consider redirecting to the excellent 'Skye Birds' website right now... http://www.skye-birds.com/

Now, with the serious twitchers gone, it's hello to you slightly less 'birdy' people...

Here at Roskhill, I have a couple of feeders dangling from a tree just outside my study window. The feeders contain peanuts and fat balls, and I very occasionally throw a few kitchen scraps on the ground beneath the feeders. In spite of Roskhill being a very small human residential community, lying within many acres of heather moorland and rough grazing, our garden attracts a wide variety of what might be considered to be 'garden birds'.

Our garden 'regulars' include the inevitable blackbirds, and we almost always have a robin or three. Chaffinches are common, and there is almost always a dunnock hopping about under the feeders. The tit family are represented by great tits, blue tits and coal tits.  We have a few house sparrows and an occasional starling and song thrush. This year, we have been seeing an increase in numbers of goldfinches and greenfinches, and siskins are also quite common visitors.

As for larger birds - two-tone hooded crows are always around - and tend to be more gregarious and bolder than their all-black southern cousins, and collared doves are visiting more often these days. . We occasionally get a glimpse of a sparrowhawk.

A short walk up the road takes one out of the gardens and into the moor. Here, the 'little brown jobs' are meadow pipits and sedge warblers, while buzzards and snipe are often seen - and heard - in the sky. I am sure there are other birds about, but I lack the skill to identify them. However - in spite of us being less than a mile from the sea, it is rare to see any seabirds here at Roskhill.

One last word goes to the Cuckoo. Since we moved here in 2008, we have learned to expect several cuckoos to start to 'sing' in April every year. They would then lay their eggs, and young cuckoos would be hatched, and would then depart in July. This year, 2017, just one cuckoo arrived in Roskhill, and sang for a week or so. This one bird seems now to have moved on. 2017 could be the first cockoo-less summer we have had here. What a tragedy it is, that man has had so much influence on the wildlife on our planet that such a familiar bird as the cuckoo is now risking extinction.

My fuzzy photos are of a few Roskhill birds - pictures taken through my double glazed study window.

Two goldfinches (look carefully...)

Male chaffinch

Blue tit

Greenfinches

Coal tit