Birds in the garden

[Scally]

the only time i have seen ospreys ,is in canada when we were on holiday in 2005.
the house where malcolm and me grew up was next to a field,used to see plenty of birds .then in the winter there were redwings ,fieldfares ,bramblings ,plus a load of native birds .
there was a telegraph pole out the back ,green woodpeckers used to land on it .

Looks like an Osprey to me , a real corker of a picture: first class!

[crocus]

Hi sajehar - kestrels do hover and then pounce on an unsuspecting small mammal or bird, but they look quite different underneath (they dont have those dark markings) and they fan their tail out. Ospreys feed on fish and are mostly found in Scotland in the UK. The birds you have seen almost certainly are kestrels, but that photo looks like an osprey to me too.

[madeliaette]

Here I am, having written a book about Illawarra/AUSSIE birds, yet knowing little about the local ones...
I do recall that once in math class someone pointed out the window and said 'wow - a kestrel'....the whole class stared out the window and even the teacher did - without getting mad at the student who had been somewhat inattentive to their lesson!

[Sajehar]

Fancy me thinking kestrels were opsprays for all those years! There's a lot round here. I love watching them from the attic window as the hover over the golf course and then swoop down at a phernomonal speed to grab some unsuspecting wild life. I saw a kestrel once being attacked by a couple of swallows, or something very like swallows. The kestral flew away... the big wimp!
Siskins look like very colourful birds. Are they Scottish birds? I don't think I've ever seen one before Scally's photos. Never heard of them before either.

[hunkamunka]

My next door neighbour has two geese and I keep seeing them in my garden, they are the most unpleasant creatures I have ever come across. I have to run past them to my car swinging an umbrella or they bite me

[david c]

sajehar al ot of birds of prey get mobbed by other birds ,and because of the way herons fly ,with their necks tucked in ,they get mobbed by birds of prey as well .
siskins are found down south usually in alder trees .
i took the photo of the osprey in canada at kamloops lake.

[crocus]

Sajehar, Im not absolutely sure what the birds that saw off the kestrel were, but something occurs to me - hobbies are birds of prey that look very much like big swallows. Perhaps the kestrel was intruding onto another birds of preys "patch" and got seen off

Geese are vicious birds, hunkamunka (they are often used as guards - like dogs - because they are so territorial). Id find out where they are coming in and stop up the hole. They have obviously decided that your garden is theirs

[hunkamunka]

Thanks crocus, the thing is though that I live in one of 4 little cottages and we have communal chickens (for the eggs) and I dont want to block them from my garden, especially Barry the cockerel so I guess Im going to have to keep on dodging the geese. Looking on the brightside, I dont think ill get burgled

[Scally]

Siskins are mainly northern birds, a type of finch, colourful and cheery characters. Sadly we don't get them often, I love to watch them.

[david c]

i think there used to be an old country belief ,if there were geese in the farmyard it was a sigh that the farmers wife ruled the roost ,because farmers dilike geese because their droppings ruined the grass ,but the wife had the eggs .
or something like that.