Six on Saturday

My last six on Saturday was a half dozen favourite garden blooms, this time it’s the turn of favourite garden birds. As with the blooms, choosing six favourite birds is nigh on impossible but here goes.

First up is the Starling, for me a beautiful and much overlooked bird. As a child, on the small East Yorkshire council estate that I grew up on, it seemed that the pantiled roof of every house had at least one Starlings nest under the eves. We called them Sheppies, a name which surely must originate from their habit of hitching rides on the backs of sheep. Starling itself comes from the Anglo Saxon, little star, some say it’s named for its star spangled plumage, others for its silhouette shape in flight.

*A male Starling, a female would have pink at the base of her beak.*

Next up comes another bird that, like the Starling, sometimes gets bad press in a garden environment, the Woodpigeon. We don’t see many here, on Hoy Rock/feral doves, who roost on the cliffs and raid the garden daily, are much more numerous. These two are regular visitors, quite shy when compared to the Rock doves who arrive at dawn to hoover up all before them. Woodpigeon nests are flimsy, a thin and semi-transparent platform of twigs through which the typical clutch of two white eggs can often be seen. Years ago, on a farm where the barns were being rewired, I found a hedgerow nest made entirely of offcuts of electrical cable. Twigs of blue, brown and yellow-green, each with a bright copper core.

We get a lot of Finches here, regular readers will know that the plan was always to make this plot not just human but also wildlife friendly and as time has progressed bird numbers have increased. Of the ten species of Finch we have seen here, five are now regular breeders. Of those the Siskin is by far the most tolerant of humans, a tiny finch that arrives here in April, along with its equally diminutive Lesser Redpoll cousins. The photo below is an example of their tolerance, the bird was so close that I had to step back to allow the camera to focus.

*A male Siskin, females are paler, streaked olive green and lacking the black cap.*

Next comes the Wren, not quite the Uk’s smallest resident bird, that prize goes to the Goldcrest, but if there was a prize for the loudest song from the smallest body, the Wren would win it hands down. A bird that sings its heart out. Nest sites are always inventive and varied, among other places we’ve had them inside a ball of twine, in an old, rotting from the inside out, gatepost, and up on the moor I once found a nest at almost ground level, tucked low in a protective arch of heathers.

Next is a bird whose arrival here can almost be timed to the day, each year on around the 20th of April, we’ll hear the first Cuckoo call. In the North they’re the Gowk, from the norse, gaukr. Their call is said to be a bringer of good or bad fortune, depending on from which direction you first hear it. A call from West is the best, said to bring a promise of a prosperous year. At home we hear them first on the moor, which is due west – I live in hope. Another proverb, that hails from my childhood in Yorkshire, says that on hearing the first Cuckoo you should, for good luck, turn over the coins in your pocket.

*A male Cuckoo, newly arrived from a Winter in the Sahara.*

And lastly, the villain of the piece, the Sparrow hawk. One of natures natural born killers. In reality they’re no villain, more a sign of a balanced eco system, a system healthy enough to support apex predators. They visit here pretty much daily and their arrival is announced by an explosion of wings, as birds of all sizes scatter or seek shelter from bright eyes and sharp talons. The Rock doves mentioned earlier, are a hawk early warning system. Always alert they’re the first to scatter, giving a vital few seconds warning to smaller less aware birds. The one below is a female, sitting out the rain and ever watchful. She’s a quarter larger and twice as heavy as the male, capable of tackling prey up to and including the size of a Wood pigeon. In past times her old english name was Spar. To a norseman she was Freya, after the goddess whose cloak of feathers allowed her to turn into a hawk. The noticeably smaller male is a musket, from mosca – a Fly.