Talkback: Coal tits - Talkback - gardenersworld.com

09/11/2011 at 09:01

I must keep an eye out for them, Richard, as they favour next door's garden. They should be arriving in Bristol about now. It is usually the bluetits that I spot first, as you say - not so good at camouflage.

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09/11/2011 at 09:10

Coal Tits are all over Belfast it seems. I moved into this house September 2009 and the Coal Tit was actually the first bird to visit the bird table. Plenty have been around since and what a great bird to watch, quite the acrobat, as you say.

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09/11/2011 at 10:57

we have plenty of blue-tits,coal-tits and great-tits in our garden,over the harsh winter last year,i counted over 12 coming out of a bird-box on our house,it was so sweet,as i pulled up in my car i noticed them and just sat in my car counting and watching them... i also have a little wren [think thats what it is],and he or she has taken up residents in a bug box on our wall,theres a tiny tiny gap about inch or so and ive seen it go back and fourth in it.

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09/11/2011 at 18:23

Have just found this page, and am thrilled to read the comments on the lovely article. I love to watch the birds taking turns in the bird bath. Great tit, then Wren, and Robin after Blackbird.

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09/11/2011 at 19:06

I haven't seen any coal tits but I do have lots of blue tits and sparrows and a lovely robin who is getting very brave at getting closer and closer to me when I am in the garden. I just love the birds and stand for ages watching them from my kitchen window.

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10/11/2011 at 19:28

Yes as above I have the pleasure of blue tits, great tits and coal tits but also long tailed tits so a very nice colletion of Tits. The birds this year have been slow to come back to the garden but I am now just starting to see a few more on the feeders. My flock of 30+ Sparrows are about again but just 'fleeting' visits it seems as with a few Gold Finches. Remember to keep your feeders filled up but in this time when the birds aren't eating quite so much from our feeders please remember to change any seed which has been hanging around untouched and to periodically clean your feeders to prevent spread of disease which the birds can be susceptible to at this time. Also if feeding the birds ensure you have a supply of fresh clean water available for them also. Richard you also mentioned Red Admirals, I can report we still have the odd one fluttering around down here in Somerset as well as the odd bee!!... http://higgysgardenproject.blogspot.com/ Higgy

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10/11/2011 at 21:35

We haven't had to good luck to see any Coal Tits but we do have a 'flock' of about 15 Long Tail Tits come have a feed and go again. The pleasure you get from watching the antics of the birds be they what they may you can't put a price on it.

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11/11/2011 at 07:22

Thank you for all your interesting information. I still have so many birds in my garden such as Tits all types I even had several Long Tailed Tits the other day. Ofcourse I give them good seed and fat with meal-worms so they are happy. Robins Blackbirds Doves are all around most days. I only wish bird food was not quite so expensive.

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11/11/2011 at 09:07

Just looked out of my window and although grey and murkey out there, there are loads of birds of all sorts, but where is my thrush that comes each year to guard my holly tree, there are two big wood pidgeons guarging on the berries and they are dissapearing so fast if the thrush doesn't hurry up she won't get a look in.

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11/11/2011 at 13:38

I bought a bird feeder when I was in England.......but no bird seeds. Other than suet fat balls (which we don't have here...) What can I put in that doesn't spill out?

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11/11/2011 at 15:59

I have coal,great and blue tits in the garden. The blue tits will stay on the feeders but the coal and great tits take a seed and fly to cover with it. Regarding the concreting over of your neighbour's front garden, I thought that was illegal now because of flooding?

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12/11/2011 at 01:25

We see the odd Coal Tit, but it is mostly Blue, Great and Long Tail in our Berkshire garden. We would probably see a lot more Tits if our thug pack of Sparrows, between 30-50 did not bully then off the seed & peanut feeders. The Sparrowhawk visited today, but failed to capture anything. It lives locally, so knows exactly where to swoop. Unusual that it did not get anything. Then again the Red Kites dwarf everything.

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12/11/2011 at 14:23

Here in Cornwall we have all the tits and finches, gold and bull, which I am thrilled to see, but no sparrows. Blackcaps and dunnocks,wrens and siskins also visit now and then.

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12/11/2011 at 14:27

I feed the birds all year round.I buy my seed from Vinehousefarm.co.uk.Next day delivery if ordered before noon and no delivery charge.Check them out.Please make sure there is a plentiful supply of water for the birds.When frost is forcast turn birdbaths upside as the water will only freeze.re-fill in the morning.

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12/11/2011 at 17:17

Lovely to hear about all the Tits - not sure about feeling them though 'spookeyfox'.....! We also have a selection of lovely Tits and Sparrows and I'm waiting to see if we'll get any Fieldfares or Redwings this year as we did last year - a real treat! At the nursery where I work we've still got a few Red Admirals, Commas, Peacocks and Bumble Bees flitting around.....as well as a family of foxes who have after-hours parties in one of the greenhouses - I'm sure they have a lovely time but it can be very smelly in there the next day! Richard, I agree - it is soul crushing when you see yet another garden being turned into a grey rectangle. When I look out of my upstairs window (being the nosey person that I am, looking for Tits and the like....ahem), 99% of the surrounding gardens are just a rectangle of grass with no plants, no borders, no trees, nothing - oh, except for maybe a BBQ.....this tempts me to make mischief and go around by night scattering wild-flower seed.......is there a name for people who do that? Over and out.....

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12/11/2011 at 18:10

Mrs. P, you are a guerilla wild life friendly gardener - a GWLFG!

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15/11/2011 at 13:39

Reply to Mrs P The trouble with mown lawns is that you can do nothing to improve them except...don't mow them. Guerilla gardening is all very well, but if the plot of land to be targeted is a bit of 'waste' land, it is probably already far better for wildlife than if it were gardened.

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15/11/2011 at 17:13

I have had a severe reduction in the number of birds visiting my garden since August, and although a few are returning I am at a loss to know why so many have disappeared. |I know that there is always a time when they are more scarce but have never been so bereft of birds for so long. I now have a few tits, blue, great and long tailed, and the odd robin and blackbird but very little else.

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15/11/2011 at 21:05

Could it be there is lots of more easily available food than normal in your district, linda? There has been a wonderful crop of fruit and berries this year.

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28/11/2011 at 18:44

Dear all, I am amateur gardener and so far this year went for me in by both front and back balcony garden, My Begonias were the most fruitful plant I had, however I am attempting to make it live longer so I brought indoors, I don't want it to die :( however I believe it's dying, it's growing a sort of white later in its leaves, like fungus, will it die anyway? also why my indoors plants are growing a kind white layer at the soil level, is that a disease? need help and advise please, thanks