Blue tit inspecting nest Box

Today has been very mild for December, in fact I could hear Blue tits singing as if it were Spring.

Only last weekend I saw a Blue tit inspecting one of the nest boxes in my garden, but last weekend was very cold so the Blue tit was not looking for a nesting site but somewhere to roost for the night, the numbers of birds that die during the winter is quite high, so they will spend most of the daylight hours looking for food and any cold snap means the birds will waste energy keeping warm so it is important that food is put out for them and as I know some people take their nesting boxes down for the Winter I leave mine out.

Unfortunately not all survive as this Spring I did find a dead Dunnock in one of my nest boxes, but some birds will roost together in a nest box for warmth and believe it or not the BTO has the record of the most Wrens nesting together in a nest box at an amazing 63!.

But sometimes in prolonged periods of cold you may get an unusual visitor to the garden looking for food, a couple of years ago not only did I have Waxwings in the garden but also a Reed Bunting, normally seen along river banks I was surprised to see a male Red bunting near my very small garden pond, but like all the birds he was finding it hard getting food so was visiting gardens.

Male Reed bunting normally seen along rivers but will visit gardens in cold periods

So as we are told by the weekend we will see another cold snap, take the time to put some food out and if you have taken your nest boxes in consider putting them back out again for the birds, who may be slightly confused by our mild weather.

There are two East Anglian birds that are usually hard to spot as they spend most of their time in reed beds where they breed, one is the Bittern and the other is the Water Rail.

The Rail Family consists of  the Coot and Moorhen and are the most commonly seen, the Corncrake and the Spotted Crake are the rarest and migrate to Africa in winter, whilst the Water Rail like the Coot and Moorhen is resident.

The Corncrake unlike the other four rails spends all it’s time on dry land hidden in tall vegetation, the Spotted crake and Water Rail like wet vegetation but the hardest to see will be the Spotted crake as it is the smallest of the rails and will spend nearly all of it’s time in thick cover, some birds do over winter but numbers are around 120 birds then and we may only see these in the south of East Anglia.

So the Water Rail although secretive is the most commonly widespread after the Coot and Moorhen, and are mostly found in East Anglia, you may see one in the open but it usually darts back into the reed stems, you are more likely to hear its pig like squeal in the reed beds.

Water Rail I was lucky to see at RSPB Titchwell

It has got really cold now more like winter, the light and the chill as it has been damp and overcast all day, lunch time was brightened up by the sight of a pair of Kingfishers of all places in Cambridge outside the botanical gardens along Trumpington road, only a short walk from the City centre, it is amazing how this brightly coloured bird goes undetected as people walk, cycle or drive past.

We have often seen a kingfisher along here and sightings are more regular as the temperature starts to go down so to see two together along here was a bonus, is this a sign we are about to get a spell of true Winter weather?.

If we about to get a cold snap then perhaps we will get sightings of winter thrushes closer to our homes as they start to look for berries or we may get Waxwings from Scandinavia, we have an apple tree in our road that is laden with apples, I shall keep a close eye on it this next few days just in case we get any on there like we did two years ago when I took the photograph below.

Waxwing feeding on apples