Thank you for your fantastic garden bird sightings
Our feathered friends are still visiting members’ gardens and we’re really delighted that so many members are sharing these with us.
This initiative is part of the BirdWatch scheme we are taking part in. Garden BirdWatch is provided by the British Trust of Ornithology to help them understand how and why populations of garden birds and other wildlife are changing, and how they can assist them.
Please carry on sending in your observations and sharing with U3A via our online form.
We hope that these photos and observations from members inspire you to get your cameras out.
Valerie, Bourton and District U3A, was lucky to find three finches, a Bullfinch, Goldfinch and Chaffinch happily feeding together with no squabbling on her garden bird feeder. Valerie also spotted this Egret on her daily walk along the River Leach in Northleach, Gloucestershire on a glorious sunny day in May.


Robert from Arun West U3A gets the odd Sparrowhawk hunting in the garden.

Ian, Oldham and District U3A, took these wonderful photos birds in his garden. What fantastic colours and detail!



Gill, Eastbourne U3A, saw a Hobby in her son’s garden at Hampden Park Eastbourne . It stayed long enough for her to get a photo. Hobbys are part of the Peregrine Falcon family.
Kath, Cheltenham, has bullfinches regularly visiting her suburban garden in Cheltenham, often monopolising the sunflower-seed feeder for several minutes at a time. There is almost certainly more than one pair: last year they several times saw 5 at once, 3 males and 2 females. The odd thing is that before they moved there 5 years ago they lived for 31 years in a house 300 yards away where they never saw them at all.
Brian, Belfast U3A, took this picture of a Robin which received a commendation in a competition for the way the robin was framed in the tree.

Peter, Barnsley U3A, tells us that most of his sightings and pictures are through his kitchen window at the moment understandably. Mostly Wood-pigeons, Blackbirds, Sparrows, & strangest of all a Moorhen.

Hilary, South Leicestershire U3A, has a blackbird dynasty who owns their garden and this cheeky one has inherited the characteristic known here as “get out of my way so that I can find that worm”.

We would love to hear from more members about your sightings and for you to share any photographs you have managed to take of your feathered visitors.
Mary Gibbons is our Birdwatching subject adviser for the U3A movement, Mary has a lot of information on her Subject Adviser page to help with this and can help with any individual enquiries.