It feels like I’ve been waiting for the birds to start getting down to it for ages now and finally, now that we are in to May, it seems that they have started to get things going. Today we had our first chicks in the form of 5 fluffy balls of the Starling variety in the Starling box at home.
Apart from the Starlings though (with a second pair nesting in our old Tawny owl box) the garden is still very quite with just a few boxes occupied, mostly with partially built nests,one with a single tit egg and another with a Great tit sitting on a full clutch. I'm hoping that things pick up soon and it looks promising as I watched Dunnocks chasing each other around and had three Chiffchaffs singing in the garden today. Our House Martins also look to be on eggs now – I always enjoy having our chittering summer visitors whizz around the garden.
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| This year the Great Tits decided to nest in the tiny Coal Tit box instead of their usual, much lager box, which now sits empty - strange birds! |
I have seven Oystercatcher nests on the go at the minute, all with eggs laid in last week. Hoping to ring some cute chicks in the next few weeks (I have to be girly sometimes!). Most of my Oystercatcher nests are at Stirling University where they nest in good numbers around the main buildings and also on the flat roofs.
Probably the most exciting find for me so far was on Friday when I made a preliminary visit to my main Common Gull study site and was ever so excited to find the first eggs of the year!
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| We found three nests with one egg each and one fully built. It’ll soon get very busy for the gulls….and me! |
The first eggs are particularly exciting for me as I have just started a new colour ring project on Scottish breeding Common Gull. I am currently trying to raise funds for the project on Kickstarter as ,with it being the first year of the project, the start up costs are significant. I’d really appreciate you taking the time to check out my Kickstarter page, share with friends and any donation is really appreciated as raising funds for the project is vital for its success.
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