By Richard Watkinson.

April 2001. My partner has just moved into her new house, situated in sub-urban Sheffield, overlooking an area of short-cropped grass and bordering onto woodland. The previous owner fed the birds but not with a great deal of imagination or realisation of the species present in the garden, since she said that she'd never seen a blackbird. Sadly we are watching them fail to nest because of magpies.

The garden is quite large and, in parts, very overgrown from years of neglect. The wildlife is extensive. Foxes visit regularly (even at midday) but it is the bird-life that is of most importance to us. In the first week [in mid-April 2001] we have counted 24 species coming to the garden / bird feeders. Most of them are the usual garden birds but we have at least two pairs of Long-tailed Tits coming to the feeders very regularly, House Sparrows and at least two pairs of Bullfinches. Regarding the bullfinches, both birds of one pair are ringed (with silver BTO rings on the right leg) the other pair are not, there may be a third pair with just one bird sporting a ring.

[19th April 2001]. Yesterday I put up some nest boxes. Blue tits are already carrying nesting material into the tit box - they were investigating within ten minutes. I have never seen a nest box occupied so quickly - there must be a shortage of good sites in this locality is all I can think of.

A second nest box was put up on Friday [20/4] evening, on the far boundary, so less easy to observe when the tits are nipping in and out which they do extremely quickly once they have sorted out the location and approach routes. This box is also proving to be of great interest. I went to Blacktoft on Saturday (my day of rest). However my observers reported continuous activity at the first box with nesting material (my partner and her parents are VERY early risers) and a great deal of interest in the second box.

[22nd April 2001]. Today we did a bit of feeder moving since the first box was too close to a peanut feeder. The Blue Tits who 'own' this box are very aggressive at the moment, probably because the feeder was too close and we didn't move it soon enough. I'm watching The Remorseful Day as I type this which is a bit sad....

Latest news 28 April 2001. The first Blue Tit nest must be ready as lining material has seen taken in but I suspect laying will not take place until the weather gets a bit warmer. Consequently activity at the boxes has decreased a lot.

On the Bullfinch front we have positive evidence of a minimum 5 birds through observation of their rings or absence thereof. This evening there were 4 birds around the feeding stations at the same time and for over an hour - something I've not noticed with Bullfinches before. We saw two ringed males, one ringed and one un-ringed female. Previously an un-ringed male with an un-ringed female have been seen but could it be the un-ringed female we saw tonight? Unlikely I feel since these birds are usually in pairs at this time of year. So I suspect we have three pairs.  Question: are the ringed birds likely to be siblings?

Best news was confirmation of Greater Spotted Woodpecker when a brief visit was made to the feeding area and also a Pied Wagtail spent quite a while hopping around the garden which we'd not seen before (in the garden!). This brought the species count to 26 and not a single summer migrant yet!

Spring and early summer 2002.

The garden has had a lot of work done on it in the past 12 months. Some of which is bound to affect the birds in the short term though all our nest-boxes have been snapped up. Unfortunately the Treecreeper box was occupied by Blue Tits within 24 hours.

Having said that, the last three weeks have shown an excellent breeding season in and around the garden. Let's hope the poor weather at time of writing doesn't kick this into touch.

Three nest boxes of Blue Tits have fledged, we have at least 3 young Great Spotted Woodpeckers visiting together with young Great Tits, Nuthatches, Dunnocks, Song Thrushes and Robins.

House Sparrow numbers have increased dramatically from a normal count of 2 - 4 to numbers ranging from 12 -17. They seem to be behaving as I remember them 20 years ago in Lincolnshire. By that I mean socialising in small groups. We watched a group of about ten trying to dust bath on a sloping part of the garden - they were clearly having a good time like otters...

Bullfinches are now seen more or less continually and we have positive evidence of a minimum 8 birds through observation of 4 males and 4 females today. The ringed birds from last year are much less evident.

Visiting birds in the last week include Mistle Thrush, Jay, Long Tailed Tits, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Crow, and Swift.

Our regular Sparrowhawks have not been seen for some time.

Latest news 22nd September 2002.

For those bemoaning the demise of Summer and the advent of Autumn our last garden breeding species of the year had a successful fledging on the 21st September and the young Woodpigeon has been seen sitting in the birch trees.

It has been a delight watching the progress of this as the parent birds have a regular perching/mating/mutual-preening branch in an oak at the bottom of the garden and the nest is about 7 feet up in a pollarded sycamore just outside the lounge but below window height.

Woodpigeons don't always get a good press but this pair, now a family, have been great -almost like family pets. The birds are very trusting where we are concerned - mind you I suppose they know on which side their bread is buttered, which is neither as it happens!

Outside of the house we regularly had to pass very close to the nest and never did adults or youngster show any signs of being agitated although they did watch us carefully to begin with. We do tend to be quiet but the lawnmower is not as considerate, likewise the neighbours but the pigeons look down on them!

On the day before fledging this trust turned to blatant indifference as the nestling was looking out of the nest in the opposite direction and ignored me completely even though I was only about 8 feet away.

Nesting attempts earlier in the Summer were probably thwarted by Magpies but like last year the Magpies appear to be less interested/successful in late Summer.

Other garden bird numbers seem to be relatively stable except for a noisy but welcome increase in House Sparrows. Hopefully they will find the 'Terraced Accommodation' which has just been erected for them - planning permission applied for... I still can't understand the almost total absence of Starlings.

A juvenile Sparrowhawk was a regular visitor during August and just like last year Willow Warblers were seen showing aggressive behaviour to the tits around the feeders. This behaviour is documented in BOWP but we have only noted it prior to their Autumn migration.