A Twitcher's Dream.

I am in heaven right now. It's my very favourite time of year, the leaves are full of all my favourite colours, reds, yellows, oranges, browns and golds and the trees and hedgerows are fulls of nuts, seeds and berries.  For me, this is when Nature is at its most beautiful.  Our garden has been something of a wildlife haven recently, with frogs, toads, voles, squirrels and grass snakes all making their appearances and putting a huge smile on my face.

Today has been a little bit extra special.  It's dismal and gloomy with grey clouds and the temperature is only just hovering above 10 degrees (C) but to make up for the weather, nature put on a bit of a show for me.  Our garden has been almost swarming with hundreds of garden birds, some that I see every day and love with all my heart and others that I very rarely catch a glimpse of and I get butterflies in my tummy when they do make an appearance.

I want to make a list here of the birds that have made an appearance in my own back garden today, just to show how amazing Britain's birds really are, because they make me giddy and I'm a total dork about these things.  This is what makes me happy!

The bird that started this entire post, the Redwing.  I've only  ever seen one or two of these in the past.  When I looked out of the kitchen window today there must have been 20 or 30 of them on the lawn.  At first I had no idea what they were but when I looked at them through the binoculars they were quite unmistakable.


The rest of the swarm was made up of the birds that follow.

Tree Sparrows.


House Sparrows.


Blue Tits.


Coal Tits.


Great Tits. (Next time I search for that on Flickr, remind me to put safe search on.)


Robins. My very favourite little birds in the entire world.


Goldfinches.


Goldcrests.


A Green Woodpecker.


And then the Buzzard flew over and everything else vanished in a split second.


This motley crew absolutely made my day. I just wish I had a zoom lens for my camera so I could have captured some of the birds as they were going about their business.  Maybe next time.  :)

 ETA: There is now a Pheasant just hanging out with my chickens.  Today rocks!