Baby Birds

Not too much to report of late. I went to Devon and saw a whimbrel at Crow Point in Braunton as well as my first swallows of the year. I set up a large niger seed feeder in Devon hoping to eventually attract bullfinches. I expected the birds to take a few days to discover the seed but to my pleasant surprise I had siskins feeding from it on the first day! That's Devon for you.

I thought I saw some house martins in Regent's Park but now reading the park blog I see that swifts have also been seen which makes me wonder. I still need to get these birds clear in my head. One small triumph was when I was walking through Regent's Park the other day and distinctly heard a chiffchaff, looked round and then saw it. Once you know the song you realise that it's actually quite a common bird even though the first time I ever recorded actually seeing one was last year.

This morning I woke up and saw a baby robin in the garden. I have lots of robins so hope that this is a baby from one of the pairs regularly fighting it out in my garden. This evening, I was watching the great tits going in and out of the bird box and thought I saw a baby coming to the opening in between feeds. Having the binoculars to hand I was then treated to witnessing for the first time three great tits leaving the box. Two I saw clearly with the bins, with the second one sneaking out without me seeing him clearly. There is at least one more in the box which also approached the opening but has not come out. My other bird box is empty which makes me wonder whether two boxes this close are too many.

The niger seed is going down at increasing speed which is probably the result of three goldfinches regularly feeding together at the moment. I wonder if they feed regurgitated niger seed to their young?