We are lucky that we have lots of wildlife in our garden. I do my best to encourage more and tend to leave wild areas for the birds as well as leaving quite a lot of the fallen fruit on the floor for them to eat. I also tend to put food out for  them and am often surprised by the birds that come to the bird table. We have groups of crows and starlings that visit regularly but I was recently surprised by this group of jays that visited as I have never seen them in such large numbers. In all there were seven birds but they didn’t all land to feed.  I was, however, able to get a few pictures of some of them. Click on the images for bigger versions.

21 Cranes will soon be released into the wild in an effort to reintroduce them into the British countryside. The bird has been absent from Britain for around 400 years with the last known sighting back in 1583. In April a clutch of eggs was shipped in from Germany and hatched at the Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire. The birds have been put through a realistic upbringing programme which has included being taught how to avoid predators. They have now been released into a temporary enclosure and are due to be released into the wild next month. The birds have been fitted with GPS satellite tracking devices so that they can be monitored after release to see how they get on.

According to this article cases of poisoning of Scottish birds of prey at are the highest level for 20 years. This is despite efforts by the Scottish government to tackle wildlife crime. Conservationists are calling for tougher laws to help combat wildlife crime after the RSPB revealed a record number of poisoning cases against birds such as golden eagles and red kites last year. One idea is to make grouse moor owners legally responsible for attacks on birds of prey that happen on their estates. There were 46 proven poisoning incidents last year including the deaths of two golden eagles, four red kites, 21 buzzards and a sea eagle. The problem is caused by some gamekeepers targeting birds of prey because they eat game birds kept for private shooting.

In an effort to reintroduce sea eagles to Scotland 19 chicks have been flown in from Norway. They are being kept in a secret location until they are strong enough to fledge and be released. The programme to reintroduce the sea eagle began four years ago and so far there have been over 2,000 sightings of the birds in Scotland. It is thought there are now 46 breeding pairs in the area and around 200 individuals. The project has met with resistance from farmers and crofters who accuse the birds of stealing lambs and chickens but a recent report suggests the eagles have a minimal impact on lamb deaths. The Scottish Environment Minister believes the scheme is important to restore biodiversity and increase tourism.

According to this article a pair of purple herons have bred in the UK for the first time. The RSPB have been watching the birds in the Dungeness peninsula in Kent and have now confirmed that they are raising chicks in their nest. The birds usually breed in southern Europe although small numbers do visit Britain every year.

A rare feather has recently sold for a record amount at auction in New Zealand. The brown and white father is from a huia bird which has been extinct since 1907. It sold for NZ$8,000 that's around £3,800 making it the most expensive feather ever. The feathers were traditionally used as decorations by Maori chiefs. This one has belonged to a family who owned a number of Maori artefacts and has been verified as authentic by experts.

A conservation project to reintroduce the great bustard to the UK appears to be meeting with some success as four chicks have hatched this year. The great bustard was hunted to extinction in 1832 but was reintroduced to Salisbury Plain six years ago. This is the second year that the birds have bred successfully in the wild so looks encouraging for the return of the species. The great bustard is the world’s heaviest flying bird according to this article, weighing up to 44lb and measuring 3ft tall. It is its size that made it such an easy target for hunters and so led to its extinction. The current project to reintroduce the species was launched in 2004 with birds being hand reared in Russia before being released in the UK. So far 104 birds have been released with seven known chicks being hatched so far.

Parrots in Australia have been falling out of trees with symptoms similar to drunkenness. Birds have been struck down with a mystery illness. They show signs similar to human drunkenness, losing all coordination before passing out. They then cower in their cages when they wake up and recover. The problem appears to be seasonal with most of the lorikeets recovering within a few weeks and falling ill again the same time the following year. So far nobody is sure what is causing the mystery illness although it is thought it might be down to a plant that they are eating.

According to this article the Alaotra grebe has now been confirmed as extinct. The last sighting of the bird was in 1985. The species from Madagascar lived in Lake Alaotra. It is thought it has been killed off by a combination of poaching and predatory fish.  It is thought to be the first confirmed bird extinction since 2008.

According to this article a pair of purple herons are nesting in the UK for the first time. The birds are more commonly seen in Europe, although they visit Britain in small numbers each year. The pair that have nested near Dungerness are currently being protected and it is hoped that they might be the first to successfully breed here. For now they are receiving round the clock protection with Kent police helping the RSPB to protect the nest. It will be interesting to see if they manage to hatch any eggs.

This is interesting its a cross between a chicken and guinea fowl. The rare hybrid was hatched in Defford, Worcestershire. Called a guin it is the result of an accidental union between a female hen and a male guinea fowl. The bird retains some of the characteristics of each of each parents but is unusual because it also has four wings. It seems the bird who has been named Tulip does not realise she is different from the other hens, however it is thought the cross breed is infertile so she may be sold at auction.

In what seems to be rather unusual behaviour a swan has been pictured eating an eel. The picture was taken by a wildlife photographer who has been watching a pair of nesting swans. Mike Davies was lucky enough to get a shot of the male swan pulling the eel out of the water and eating it. It is not clear why this swan has developed a taste for eel as their more usual food is insects, molluscs, plants and small fish.

According to this article the number of goldfinches increased by 78% last year. The increase is largely being put down to the fact that people are starting to put out a new bird seed mix on their bird tables. The mix of nyjer seeds and sunflowers seeds seems to be increasingly popular with people who feed the birds. Luckily for goldfinches the mix is their food of choice as it is very similar to what they eat in the wild. It appears that this new food source has boosted the population and has also led to more sightings of goldfinches at garden bird tables. Based on this I might get some of this seed for the goldfinches in my garden or perhaps I might plant some sunflowers to encourage more of them to visit.

This cute little guy is one of eight crane chicks that have recently been hatched at a reserve in Gloucestershire. The eggs which have been brought in from Germany are part of a project to reintroduce a sustainable population of cranes in the UK. A batch of 18 eggs were driven back to the UK from Germany because the disruption caused by the volcanic ash cloud meant they could not be transported by plane. So far 8 of the eggs have hatched  and the others are expected to hatch over the next week. Another batch of eggs will also be brought in as part of the project. The chicks will then be taught how to behave as cranes. Apparently as part of the training their human teachers will need to dress up as cranes to show them how to behave in the wild. I am looking forward to the update to this article that shows the lessons. If the project is successful they will be the first population of cranes in the UK since the 1600s when they died out due to hunting and loss of habitat.

Scientists from the University of Auckland have shown another example of crows using complex problem solving techniques.  In previous experiments it has been shown that crows are somewhat smarter than the average bird. The latest research shows that they are able to work out how to use three tools in succession in order to get to a food source. In the diagram above the crow uses the string which is attached to perch (1) to reach the short stick attached to the string (2). The short stick is used to reach the long stick out-of-reach behind bars (3) and the out of reach scrap of meat (4)is eventually hooked out using the long stick. You can see the crows in action in the video in the original article. Crows have previously been know to craft their own tools in order to reach pieces of food that would usually not be accessible. The fact that they can use multiple tools to solve problems often on the first attempt shows that they are innovative problem solvers on the level of primates. I might start making some tests for the crows in my garden to see what they make of them.

This is interesting its a blue tit that has an unusually long beak. As you can see from the picture it is a normal blue tit in every other way but just has a rather long bill. The bird was spotted at a nature reserve in Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire where it has been visiting the reserves feeders for about a week. It does not appear to have any difficulties in feeding but it is thought the bill will continue to grow and that it will later impair it ability to feed and preen. I wonder whether the bird will find any ways to take advantage of its extra large bill, perhaps to open up other sources of food.

Migrating geese in Scotland will be fitted with tags to try and figure out whether wind farms pose a risk to birds. The Government wants to build hundreds of wind turbines off the cost of Britain within the next years but there are fears that migrating birds will crash into the turbines. Scientists have fitted solar powered tags onto barnacle geese and will track the birds as they migrate to the Arctic every summer. They hope that by plotting the exact routes and flying habits of the birds will help to decide where wind farms can be built so that less birds are harmed.

According to this article ravens are starting to return to the south east. Ravens have not seen in any significant numbers in lowland England for nearly a hundred years. Ravens were driven out of lowland England by Victorian gamekeepers and have only been common in Wales, Scotland, the West Country and the Lake District. The decline of gamekeepers and the increased amount of road kill available as food has seen the birds spread east of the Welsh borders and they have now been spotted in the Midlands, Cheshire, Worcestershire, Wiltshire Derbyshire and Sussex. I am yet to see any where I live in Kent but it seems we may soon be seeing a few more of these birds.

A lucky duck has survived a 500 mile journey trapped in the radiator grill of a van. The driver of the van hit a pair of ducks on a country road in Belgium. It was only when he stopped to inspect the damage at a service station on the M1 that he found one of the ducks was still trapped inside. The duck suffered a broken wing but it is thought he will make a full recovery.

A lake in Leicestershire has had a number of unexplained duck disappearances. Stonebow Washlands in Loughborough, Leicestershire has seen numbers of duck fall dramatically in the area. Some local people have seen something dragging them under the water. It is not known what is eating the ducks but it is thought it might be a large pike or catfish or perhaps a mink. Local people have been warned not to let smaller pets swim in the lake and to stop children from pond dipping in the area.

If you participated in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch then you might be interested in this article. It suggests that the number of small birds spotted in gardens has fallen as a result of the harsh winter. Numbers of coal tits were down 20% whilst goldcrests were down by 75%. More than 530,000 people took part in the bird watch which recorded more than 8.5 million birds. The results found a rise in some birds such as fieldfares, yellowhammers, redwings and bullfinches which are normally found in fields and hedgerows. Song thrushes and mistle thrushes were also seen in higher numbers. The top ten most seen garden birds were the house sparrow, blackbird, starling, blue tit, chaffinch, wood pigeon, robin, great tit, collared dove and goldfinch.

A female osprey has returned to Scotland for her 20th consecutive year. The bird is thought to be the UK’s oldest breeding bird having nested every year for the past 20 years at the Scottish Wildlife Trust's (SWT) Loch of the Lowes wildlife reserve. At an estimated 25 years old she has reached three times the average lifespan of an osprey and is known to have laid 55 eggs and hatched 46 chicks over her lifetime. Staff at the wildlife reserve are now waiting to see whether she will lay any more eggs this year.

This rare white puffin has been pictured off the British coast near Cornwall. The puffin was spotted among its more common black featured friends. It has a genetic mutation called leucism that dilutes the colour pigments unlike albinism which prevents melanin from forming.

According to this article nearly 500 species of plants and animals have disappeared from in England in the last 200 years. A comprehensive audit of native wildlife has found that most of the disappearances have been largely down to human activities. They include species such as the great auk, a flightless seabird which did not exist anywhere else. The survey looked at records and specimens dating back 2,000 years. It found that all but 12 of the 492 species to vanish were lost after 1800. It seems that most of the extinctions are down to increased hunting and fishing, loss of habitat and climate change. The report has offered some encouragement suggesting that recent conservation efforts have been effective where they have been employed. For example the article highlights the red kite which although it had disappeared has now been reintroduced successfully and has numbers in the hundreds. Other species like the corncrake, ladybird spider, sand lizard and polecat are also starting to return which is encouraging.

Predators of songbirds such as the magpie tend to get a bad press when it comes to looking at the reasons for the decline of songbirds. According to this article, however, they are not to blame. At a time when species such as the yellowhammer and bullfinch have dropped by half there have been calls for culls of predators such as magpies and grey squirrels which have seen numbers soar. A study of the relationship between songbirds and predators has found that rather than more causing a decline they are in fact a indication of a higher number of animals further up the food chain and a healthy overall population. For the majority of songbirds there is no evidence of a link between predators and songbird decline although it is acknowledged this might be an issue in some cases on a local level. In fact research indicated that factors such as woodland management, changing farming practices and urbanisation were more behind the decline in most cases.

If you have a bit of spare cash and want to purchase something a bit unusual, then you might be interested in this nuclear bunker. Currently on sale on ebay the bunker is based in the Peak District and comes with a plot of land. It has panoramic views over the Derbyshire Dales and includes much of the original equipment. If you are interested the current bid is £24,100.25.

Some lucky chickens in Norwich are having jumpers made especially for them. The chickens are former battery hens that have been brought by a rescue centre rather than being slaughtered. They now live at the Little Hen Rescue in Norwich whilst they are awaiting new homes. Unfortunately many of the hens are rather bald as a result of the intensive battery environment they have previously lived in, hence why they need jumpers. The jumpers are being kindly provided by a Somerset craft club who have been busy knitting to help keep the chickens warm. The Little Hen Rescue currently takes in around 4,000 hens at a time and cares for them until they are fit enough to find a new home. Around 10% of birds have lost their feathers so it seems there is a quite a demand for chicken jumpers.

A bald eagle with a broken beak has had it fixed in a rather unconventional way. The eagle had lost most of his beak after catching it in a fishing line. The resulting hole in his beak then stopped him from hunting. A dentist who was called in to help and filled the hole with putty which is usually used to fill holes in human teeth. He made it the right shape and size to fit the hole in the beak and although it is not thought the bird will return to the wild, he should now be able to survive in captivity.

A conservation project in Devon and Cornwall to help the cirl bunting is proving successful with numbers of the bird up 25% on 2003 levels. Under the project conservationists have been working with local farmers to manage land in such a way that provides food and a natural habitat for the birds. In 1989 there were just 118 pairs of breeding birds to be found in the UK but this has now risen to 862 in 2009.

A vicious pheasant has been terrorising the residents of a village in North Yorkshire. There have been reports of people being attacked and even trapped inside their homes by the bird which is creating problems in Newsham. It appears the pheasant is simply protecting what he has decided is his territory as the breeding season approaches. One thing is clear, however, this is not a a pheasant to be messed with.

The news has been full of snow related stories during the recent bad weather but this one deserves a mention for being one of the more unusual. It had never occurred to me that swans can get stuck on frozen lakes but it seems they can and do. This article highlights a case where a flock of swans had to rescued from a frozen lake by the RSPCA and some construction workers. The construction workers used their mechanical digger to break up the thick ice that has frozen around the birds. Although one swan died before they arrived the others were set free. It seems this is not an isolated incident with the RSPCA receiving around 100 calls reporting ducks and swans stuck on ice on ponds and lakes.

According to this article feeding the birds can affect the way that they evolve. Scientists have carried out a study on blackcaps which has found that they follow a different evolutionary path if they spend the winter eating food people have put out for them. The birds normal wintering ground is in southern Spain where they would feed on the fruit that grows there but some birds are now wintering in the UK because they can survive on the food we leave out on our bird tables. Studies have found that those birds which do this are now in the early stage of forming a new species. As the UK is closer to the birds breeding ground these birds also return early and claim the better territory than those that winter in Spain. The researcher found that the two groups of birds have different chemical signatures and have formed two distinct populations even down to the fact that they only mate within their own group. There are also differences emerging in the birds beak, wings and plumage with the birds that winter in the UK having rounder wings and longer narrower beaks more adapted to eating seeds and fat from bird feeders. It will be interesting to revisit this story in the future to see whether they have evolved further.

This rather oversized robin was spotted at Plymouth’s Burrator Reservoir. Surprisingly despite his size he was able to fly. The good news is with his extra bulk he should be well placed to survive even the harshest winter as long as he is fast enough to evade any predators.

According to this article a programme to save a rare species of duck is proving rather successful. The Madagascan Pochard is so rare that it is thought that there are only 20 of them left in the wild. All of the remaining population are thought to live on just a single volcanic lake. Eggs were collected from the wild population and were hatched in captivity. In all twenty four ducklings were hatched successfully. These ducklings will later be released back into the wild and it is hoped that the captive breeding programme will double the number of pochards within the next three years.

According to this article it could soon be legal to shoot parakeets. The birds have become very common in some parts of the country and there were certainly flocks of them in Egham when we used to live there. The problem is that the non native species eats much the same things as our native bird species and in some places have become so common that the native species are beginning to suffer. The birds have also been blamed for destroying crops with one vineyard owner losing enough grapes to make 3,000 bottles of wine in just a day. The London wildlife trust has criticised the proposed change because they say other birds such as green woodpeckers could be mistaken for parrots and might be shot in error. If the law is changed parakeets will join crows, gulls and magpies on the list of birds that it is legal to shoot if they have caused damage. Based on the fact that there are thought to be around 40,000 parakeets in the South East alone and some colonies have as many as 7,000 birds I think its time to go parrot shooting.

Staff at a computer company in South Africa are using pigeons to transfer data between offices because it it quicker than broadband. They say that it takes six hours to transfer four gigabytes of encrypted data from Durban to their call centre 50 miles away. In contrast it takes a pigeon with a memory card attached to its leg, just an hour to make the journey. The pigeons do face some problems, however, such as getting eaten by predators on route.

This rare albino swallow was spotted in by Steve Copsey in Rhynie, Aberdeenshire. Apparently there is a one in 18,000 chance of a bird being albino making this little guy very rare.

A re-colonisation programme hopes to reintroduce sea eagles to Scotland. Under the scheme a group of 14 chicks from Norway were reared in custom built aviaries in Fife . They have now released at the Tay estuary. The project which is now in its third year has already been successful in the west of Scotland and there are now thought to be around 200 sea eagles in the region. Last year 44 pairs of breeding birds produced 28 chicks so it looks like a good sign for the species.

I feed the birds everyday but have never considered that the bees also might need some food. According to this article gardeners are being urged to leave out energy drinks for tired bees to try and help the declining bee population. The RSPB has been inundated with calls reporting bees lying on the ground unable to fly. They recommend leaving out an egg cup filled with two tablespoons of sugar and a tablespoon of water so that tired bees can boost their energy levels.

This unusual albino blackbird was spotted by a bird watcher in South Wales.  Mr Jarman spotted the unusual bird in his garden and managed to get this picture of it. The bird which he nicknamed Snowy visited his garden for several months before it disappeared. Unfortunately with its unusual colouring it was probably picked off by a hungry pussy cat or other predator.

One of the best things about our new house is the large garden which is full of wildlife. On the day we arrived we discovered a hole at the bottom of the garden and were curious as to what might be inside. A few days later I came across a large fox sunning itself on the lawn and it now appears that we have a whole family of foxes. I have also noticed several squirrels and there are signs of hedgehog activity although I haven't actually seen one yet. We also have a variety of different birds. The most abundant appears to be the big fat wood pigeons and doves which sit in the tall trees surrounding the garden. I have also seen blackbirds, song thrushes, robins, green finches, coal tits, blue tits, great tits, wrens, crows, magpies, starlings, gold finches, woodpeckers, sparrows and some type of small hawk. As a keen birdwatcher I can see I am going to like it here. Once I have found where I packed the camera I hope to have some pictures of the wildlife so expect these to be posted shortly.

I have noticed a huge number of greenflies in my garden over the past few weeks and it appears I am not the only one. According to this article the recent hot weather has created the perfect conditions that’s the flies need to reproduce. The cold winter has also meant that many of the larger insects that eat the greenflies have been killed off. The insect explosion whilst it is not good news for gardeners like me is however, good news for garden birds that rely on insect numbers to flourish.

According to this article a 2,500 bird’s nest has been found on a cliff in Greenland. The nesting site is used by gyrfalcons and includes three other nests all of which are more than 1,000 years old. Ornithologists discovered how old the nests were when they were trying to find out long the birds return to the same site. They used carbon to date the bird droppings and debris left behind and were surprised to find out how the nests actually were. One of the nests also contains feathers from a bird which would have lived more than 600 years ago.

According to this article a bustard has bred in the wild in Britain for the first time in 200 years. In fact three chicks have hatched at two sites on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The exact spots are being kept secret in order to protect the bird but the news is the first sign that an reintroduction programme might be working. In 2004 forty chicks were brought to Britain from Russia to their new home on Salisbury Plain. Bustards, however, are slow to mature and the first known nest in 2007 produced infertile eggs. The presence of chicks is encouraging and there are hopes that the population will now be able to become self sustaining.

According to this article the cuckoo has featured of Britain’s list of endangered birds for the first time. The latest assessment of Britain’s native birds puts the cuckoo as one of 52 species which are now considered to be at risk. Numbers of the bird have fallen by as much as 37% in the last 15 years. Other birds on the list include the lapwing, tree pipit, wood warbler and yellow wagtail. Once common species such as the song thrush, house sparrow and starling have also seen a drastic decline mainly caused by loss of habitat.

This article is interesting it suggests that rooks are as intelligent as monkeys and that they are able to perform complex puzzles in order to source food. Four birds were given a puzzle with a small basket of worms inside a plastic tube. The worms were out of reach but the birds were also given a piece of straight wire. In each case the rooks bent the wire to make it into a tool and then used it to hook the basket of worms out of the tube. Unlike other animals which can learn how to solve a problem by using trial and error the rooks all solved the problem immediately despite never been shown how to do it. Researchers at Cambridge University believe that these results show that rooks have an intelligence to rival chimpanzees who are also able to craft tools using their hands.

According to this article £300,000 of taxpayers money was spent on research into finding out which kind of water ducks prefer. This hugely important and ground breaking research was carried out by Defra with the aim of making sure that ducks kept on farms are properly treated. During the three year study by Oxford University scientists offered the ducks different types of water including a trough, a pond, a shower and a nipple drinker. It was found that the ducks preferred standing under a shower and that they spent twice as long under the shower as they did in the other water.

This picture shows what happened to one poor pigeon when he bit off a little more than he could chew. The pigeon must have at first considered himself to be very lucky when he found a whole bagel, however, it wasn't long before things when a little wrong and he ended up the bagel around his neck. As the pictures show the unfortunate pigeon was still able to fly but sadly unable to reach the bagel in order to eat it. The pigeon is now likely to be stuck with bagel around his neck until it becomes wet and falls off, he might have a rather long wait for that meal.

This is the first and perhaps the last picture of a rare Worcester's buttonquail. The quail which is thought to be extinct was photographed for the first time before being sold for food at a poultry market. It seems that a TV crew had enough sense to photograph the bird but not enough to stop it from being eaten. It is possible the that the species may still exist undetected in other regions of the Philippines but for now the last known specimen appears to have become someone's dinner.

Sainsbury's have announced that they will stop selling eggs from battery hens making it the first of the big four supermarkets to do so. Under new EU legislation which comes into force in three years battery cages will be banned, but farmers will be able to use larger enriched cages. Sainsbury's, however, will do away with cages altogether and will also stop using eggs from cages hens in its own label food ranges. Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and the Co-op have already banned eggs from caged hen in their stores. I have been choosing eggs from what I call "running about chickens" for a long time because they tend to taste better, its good to know that only these eggs will be on sale in Sainbury's in the future.