URBAN BIRDS

Chris spot­ted birds at St George the Mar­tyr:.

Comment:Approached SGtMG via the alley­way run­ning from Bor­ough High Street and Ten­nis Street, with the high walls of the former Marshelsea Gaol either side, and could still hear an almighty clam­our­ing of young birds for food — our great tits have fledged! Great fun try­ing to spot the young des­per­ately fol­low­ing their par­ents in the plane trees, up to the bal­cony with feed­ers, down to the tree by boxes 6 & 7. Can’t say for def­in­ite how many young, but can cer­tainly vouch for their lungs! Momma must be exhausted now that her young can fly, and fol­low her every­where. Superb that the bird boxes have been such a great home!

Mickey spot­ted birds at St George the Mar­tyr @ 8:30pm: inspect­ing the nest on mul­tiple occa­sions; enter­ing on mul­tiple occa­sions; brought food into the nest; hav­ing young in the nest.

Com­ment:

Chris spot­ted birds at St George the Mar­tyr @ 5:00pm: enter­ing on mul­tiple occa­sions; brought food into the nest:

Com­ment: Very busy at SGtM gar­dens — two great tits still feed­ing young in box num­ber 7. No sign of the (female?) wood­pecker, but many other birds present — robin, black­birds, blue tits, pigeons — on a delight­ful mid-summer afternoon.

Chris spot­ted birds at St George the Mar­tyr @ 3.30pm: enter­ing on mul­tiple occa­sions; brought food into the nest:

Com­ment: Watched the great tits fly­ing back and forth to nest box no. 7 in a most attent­ive fash­ion again this after­noon. Our res­id­ent greater spot­ted wood­pecker was also much in evid­ence vocally, though dif­fi­cult to see in the syca­more (?) trees that s/he prefers, although did fly down to the very large plane tree near the main gate where easier to see. Superb view, and I think its a female, on the bird­feeder on the bal­cony of the flats over­look­ing the gardens.

Chris spot­ted birds at Little Dor­rit @ 5.10pm:

Com­ment: Great view­ing of a green­finch on top of an aer­ial on top of a block of flats on Red­cross Way that had flown from Little Dor­rit. Other green­finches in the trees in the park heard but too dis­guised to see.

Chris spot­ted birds at St George the Mar­tyr @ 11am: enter­ing on mul­tiple occa­sions; brought food into the nest:

Com­ment: Delighted to con­firm that there are two great tits using box num­ber 7 (lower deck) fly­ing back and forth with food — the bene­fits of car­ry­ing bin­ocu­lars! GS wood­pecker also fly­ing from tree next to boxes 6&7 to the tree behind it — only sighted one and couldn’t get a good enough view to tell if M or F. Young black­bird on wall above boxes, as it was last night. All very busy at SGtM!

Chris spot­ted birds at Cop­per­field Street @ 11.50am:

Com­ment: Took some time out to relax in the little gem that is Cop­per­field St Com­munity Garden. Little bird activ­ity but a couple of people walked by whist­ling; maybe happy as its Fri­day; maybe just as they were happy — who needs a reason? Do visit this tran­quil oasis if you find your­self nearby.