Ivel Valley Wild Bird Blog

Offer a good quality seed mix in a dedicated seed feeder or on a bird table. Finches are known to love Nyger seed, which is a small black seed full of healthy proteins and oils. Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Redpolls are know to return to Nyger Seed feeders (as well as Siskins). Sunflower Hearts are also popular with Finches as they […]

We are now coming up to the main bird-feeding season, and as temperatures fall, it is vital that we continue to feed the birds. A bird can use 10% of its body weight to keep warm on a cold winter night, so if they arrive at your garden expecting to find food and there is […]

Last year the Shelducks attempted nesting in a quite exposed badger sett but they must have been disturbed so failed to breed. The pair returned again in late March but I only saw one of them on odd occasions thinking the other had moved away. I did check last year’s nest site but no activity […]

I am sure that many will have seen on TV the spectacular and hypnotic flying displays made by starlings about to go to their winter roosting sites. Lucky ones among us will have seen it in real life – good sites are spread across the country from the Somerset reed-beds to coastal piers and there […]

No I’m not looking in the mirror – but thinking about a rather strange bird that fits the above description rather well. Not only that but it is a very rare species in this country, nesting in only a very few places, one of them being on Salisbury Plain. That being so, I have actually […]

Since writing last a lot of water has run under the bridge in more senses than one. Although it hasn’t rained today (5th Jan) our garden is flooded in places. Our daffodils are not yet in flower in the garden but odd gardens in the village have had flowering daffodils for a couple of weeks […]