Garden Birds

We are really enjoying our new house in Seaton, been in it nearly two years already which has flown by!  It's great for the family and our ageing dog (12 year old Golden Retriever Honey, who is really struggling with some of her much loved walking routes now) as it has given us all the space we needed especially outside.  It keeps throwing up some surprising bird and wildlife records too...

I had to wake up at 4:30am on 21st May for a bird survey on Dartmoor, and shortly after my alarm went off a Nightjar churred outside our lounge window.  This is the second record for the garden following a brief (but even closer) churr on 24th June 2025.  A sound clip of this years bird is below, but you'll need to turn the volume right up - it's clearest just after I noisily open the curtains...

The next garden surprise was the biggest.  We were outside enjoying some alfresco dinner in the back garden with my parents on 24th May when I suddenly became aware a couple of short sharp trills, sounding a lot like a Serin.  A few moments later I heard it again a few times, got some recordings with my phone, saw a small finch-type bird take off from the top of our back hedge as it uttered a couple more calls, before flying off never to be seen again!  This was both mine and the patch's fourth record of Serin (I have been lucky enough to find three of these), but surprisingly the first spring record with all others having been recorded in the months Nov-Feb! 

The final and much more recent surprise came just the other day, whilst I was eating toast on our dining table at 7:30am on 10th September.  I could see a movement in the heather just outside the window, but a glimpse of white somewhere in its tail suggested it wasn't just a Dunnock... I was right, out popped a Common Whitethroat!  I know not at all a rare bird, and it seems to have been a good autumn for this species, but still not a bird I would have ever expected to see in our small front garden!  

Whitethroat playing peekaboo!

Next up it is time for some gull news people, accompanied by lots of lovely photos of course :)