Garden Challenge

Thanks to Mike Boyes for his account of this unusual behaviour witnessed in his garden in Little Rissington…

I noticed a male Great Spotted Woodpecker on our peanut bird feeder, so I grabbed my camera + telephoto lens to photograph it because I had only seen a female visiting for the past couple of weeks, and I wanted a picture of the male. What happened next surprised me

The GSW, after pecking repeatedly at the nuts for a minute or two at the base of the feeder, climbed to the top where a recently fledged Great Tit was waiting. The GSW then proceeded to try and feed pieces of peanut to the young Great Tit, while an adult Great Tit watched from another feeder close by. This process continued for perhaps a little less than a minute before being interrupted by the arrival of our postman, at which point both birds flew away. 

Later during the day the adult male GSW returned to the feeder many times, as did an adult female GSW (possibly from a different pair as both birds always approach and fly away from the feeder in opposite directions). The unusual behaviour pattern I witnessed earlier in the day was not repeated.

Background info: we have a garden of just under half an acre, with plenty of small to medium trees for cover, and we have four hanging feeders – fat balls, peanuts, niger seeds and sunflower hearts, plus a tray feeder enclosed in a cage to keep out pigeons. We regularly see goldfinches, greenfinches, GSWs, robins, house sparrows, great tits, blue tits, starlings, blackbirds, chaffinches, a couple of nuthatches, dunnock, collared doves, pigeons, jackdaws, and less often a wren, coal tit, long-tailed tits, and thrushes. In winter, regularly visitors include redwings and fieldfares that feed on our cotoneaster berries, and the occasional bullfinch and blackcap. I have pictures of many of these garden birds too.

This page from the BTO offers a few suggestions as to what might be happening here.

Many thanks to David Priddis for this submission about the activity he’s been observing in his garden in Woolaston. From Hawfinches to Hedgehogs, butterflies and bees, David describes his garden as a haven of sanity during COVID-19 isolation! Read David’s submission by downloading the pdf below…

Mervyn Greening has submitted this illustrated account of the goings on in his small Newent garden during the month of April 2020. Featuring observations on the weather, the activity that centres around his damson tree, the 15 species of bee he’s been able to identify, the butterflies, moths, birds, mammals and plants it’s an eye-opening account of the diversity that can be found in the small patches of ground that are our gardens. Download the full document below.

An interesting observation from the garden of Kate Kibble.

“Having spent some time observing the various solitary bees in my garden I realised that they were often accompanied by one or more unremarkable-looking flies. These closely followed the bees down to their nests and then were either seen to ‘stand watch’ by the entrance or to follow the bees down. I asked GNS recorder Tony Taylor to help with identification of some of the species I’d found and he informed me that the flies are sometimes known as satellite flies because of this behaviour. He considered they are most likely the species Leucophora obtusa and are kleptoparasitic on the mining bees, trying to lay their own egg on the food stored by the bee. Within my records for the afternoon were two other parasites of solitary bees – nothing in nature is ever as idyllic as it seems. The photo shows one of the flies waiting patiently outside an ashy mining bee burrow.”

The first submission to the Garden Challenge comes from Geoff Stansfield, who has sent us a list of the flora and fauna he has found in his garden at Mill Place. The list covers mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, a range of invertebrates, trees, fungi, lichens and more.

Download Geoff’s list.