The back garden was busy with birds this morning around 09:00 after I had restocked the bird table with seed, and topped up the flower pots with mealworms.
Four blackbirds (Turdus merula) comprising the resident ad ♂, two young birds grading into adult moult, and an obviously imm bird with the light brown speckled chest. A definite "pecking order" was apparent with the adult ♂ chasing off the younger three birds, and the youngest bird only getting food when the others were not around.
Counted 13 (prob 15) house sparrow (Passer domesticus) including 5 (poss 7) juveniles. They were very motile making an exact count impossible.
A single starling (Sturnus vulgaris) made repeated sorties filling it's beak to bursting before flying off over the roof-tops. It's presence made the sparrows very jumpy. I suspect it may be feeding young on the nest, having that frantic look of a new parent about it?
I noticed three recently fledged blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), sitting with the young sparrows on the trellis of my neighbour's garden, they didn't venture into the garden but flew off into a nearby tree. Although, an adult made its way onto the bird table shortly afterward.
This is the week of the RSPB nature count garden survey (June 4th - June 12th). The survey is similar to the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, comprising a point count of garden birds over a single hour, but with additional information requested regarding other taxa which visit the garden on a regular basis; see: http://www.rspb.org.uk/naturecount/
I plan on conducting my survey tomorrow morning, around the same time, having restocked the food reserves.
