The Return of the Reaper!

 A few pics below from the garden and a mid-morning walk around Hurstpierpoint today. The exciting news from the garden is the Swift Box has been getting a bit of attention the bad news is not when I've had the camera handy!!! We have not seen any actually go in, but they have been hanging off the ladder and swooping around!! The thought is that these are 2 year old birds checking out the box with a view to breeding next year, The scheme is apparently doing very well with at least 6 of the 20 boxes put out having some kind of action with some at least thought to have breeding pairs in them and up to 25 birds seen regularly above the area! The other good news is the garden has been full of young birds mainly Starlings, Sparrows and Goldfinch, at least 3 Greenfinch are visiting regularly, however all this action has attracted some attention, I was just saying the other day that I hadn't seen a Sparrowhawk for ages, that changed today and there is one less youngster on the feeders!

The walk today was a bit quiet, though we did see 3 Bullfinch in Langton Lane and a couple of Yellowhammer in Bullfinch Lane. There was a flock of Long-tailed Tits, a Stock Dove a Great Spotted Woodpecker and Green Woodpecker which we heard but didn't see! 

A short video of a bit of the Swift action

Look I like taking pics of Swifts, I'm just not very good at it!

Goldfinch at least eight adults and five youngsters visiting the garden now

Swifts in the evening sun

Yes these pics are even worse than the others but the light was nice

Chiffchaff from today's walk, still a few singing around the place

Arse end of a Long-tailed Tit

Not had many insects this year as yet but always like a Beautiful Demoiselle 

Yellowhammer saw a couple at the bottom of Bullfinch Lane and some faint song

HPP Church

Female Beautiful Demoiselle

Had to bravely  walk through another huge herd of large Bovines, luckily all laying down!! 

Stock Dove

Greenfinch and young Goldfinch

Joined by a female House Sparrow

Baby House Sparrow

Different male Greenfinch, with a bit of a punky hair style

Through the window shot of half a male Sparrowhawk

Through the grass shot, the problem with having a wildlife garden

Mr and Mrs Greenfinch

Misses Greenfinch

A little bit of mixed feelings about seeing the Sprawk, on one hand it's an awesome predator and the males are very handsome, on the other hand it's gonna be eating me babies!!!😢 We  pushed the feeders right back last time we had them visiting and there is plentiful cover in the garden with the large Hawthorn fully in leaf and the honeysuckle/Jasmine mess available to dive into but the youngsters are fairly easy targets, which is why the Sparrowhawks time their  nesting efforts so they are feeding their young around this time. At least it's proper nature and not poxy cats!!