A well overdue garden update.

At the beginning of the year, I started to try and turn my garden into a bit of a haven for birds and photography. What started as one feeder, turned into a feeding station, digging holes to install upright logs in the garden for woodpeckers, as well as trying to fit some additional perches in. These initial upgrades, have since been expanded on, and so it is about time that I told you what we have done.

The main focus was now on monitoring what was actually visiting the garden, which is where the PeckPerk bird feeder came in. I was sent this by PeckPerk to try out in the garden and I have to say that I am very impressed with it. We decided to install it onto the hawthorn, facing into the field behind the house. This was because the birds LOVE this tree, but also by facing it this way, it wouldn’t ever be facing into the wind/rain (which is mostly westerly, but occasionally we get a very nasty easterly).

Tim trimmed some of the branches so that we could fit the feeder. We chose to use the strap attachment, so that we could easily move it if needed, but this would also cause less damage to the tree. The feeder comes with a solar panel, so next we installed that, this time with some zip ties, again so we could move it easily if needed.

Once installed, I filled it up and waited to see what would visit. We didn’t need to wait long for the birds to find it and start using it regularly. By the end of March, we started to see some new species in the garden in the form of some Goldfinch. The feeder also hosted our resident woodpeckers and in May we saw a freshly fledged family of Coal Tits, along with another new species, a Nuthatch. The summer saw another new visitor, the Greenfinch.

I did end up having to move the solar panel for the feeder in the summer. The hawthorn was now in full leaf, blocking the sun from reaching the solar panel. The relocation was nice and fast, and after topping the feeder up from the mains from 2% back up to about 20%, the feeder went on throughout the summer with no issues.

It was amazing to be able to see all these birds visiting the garden, and how they interacted with each other. The feeder also caught some harvesting action at the end of September, when the machines were in cutting the Maize, and has continued to attract the birds in, especially now the weather is getting colder.   

I have now had to move the solar panel once again, due to our garden not getting any direct sunlight for the next few months. While this is helping, I am having to charge it up fully from the mains once a week to 10 days. This is also down to just how many visitors we are getting, with numbers regularly in the 300’s per day.

Our second big addition to the garden was a bird box that we fitted a camera into. Our idea was that if anything nested in it, we’d be able to live stream it on YouTube, however that idea was quickly dashed when we found out that the camera we got was unable to actually livestream to YouTube! We set the box up on the back of one of the lean-to’s that we have on the back of the house, as this would be far enough away from the feeder that there shouldn’t be any issues there, it would be out of both direct sunlight and the dominant wind directions, but most importantly, I would be close enough to a power socket for the camera.

Once installed, we didn’t need to wait long for our first visitors, which arrived the very next day, in the form of some Blue Tits. They were in and out over the first few days, before disappearing off and having absolutely no activity for the next month or so. We did then have a flurry of visits over a 2-week period, before they also rejected our nesting site, leaving it empty, other than a spider, until September. This was when a single Blue Tit took up residence for a couple of months, using it overnight to sleep in, and as a bolthole during the day.

It was an absolute joy to watch it fluff itself up of an evening and rest in the box overnight, as well as watch it doing some housekeeping during the day, removing some of its droppings. This lasted until the 19th November, when although there were visits in the day, the Blue Tit no longer stayed overnight, and the last visit to the box during the day was on the 22nd. We are not sure why the Blue Tit left, whether it had got too cold in there and moved off to find a bit of a warmer spot, or if something else has happened to it. But, having seen it staying there over the Autumn, has given me hope for a breeding pair in 2026 and hopefully a brood of chicks.

Along with these additions, Tim has built me a bit of an insect habitat, next to the dead hedge he made. This is made up from old stumps, logs, rubble and some old clay pipe we had in the garden. This not only tidied up the garden a bit, but will, over the next few years, play host to many garden insects, which will in turn help feed the local birds.

I did try and plant a wildflower area to also help bring in some more insects into the garden, and spent a good chunk of money on wildflower seeds, to have absolutely nothing grow, but maybe next year I will try again, and it will do better…

The final change is a new sunflower seed feeder that I have purchased to replace the original plastic ones. This one is double the capacity of them, but also is a darn site easier to clean. It also allows for many more birds to feed together, rather than just two at a time.

In terms of photographing in the garden, I haven’t actually done any since February! As I have quite a creative job, when I get home a lot of the time I can’t face pulling out the camera and creating more content and I prefer to watch the birds in the garden as well as through the recordings on the PeckPerk. However, with the changes that I have made, and the additional species now visiting (4 more than in February), it is about time I change that.

I set up on my chair hide, and sat out waiting to take my images. I had taken down many of the feeders and covered the PeckPerk, to force the birds onto the sunflower seed feeder and hopefully onto my perches I had set up. While this was good in practice, the reality was that the birds were simply hopping from the hawthorn onto the feeder and ignoring my perches entirely, and sticking in the depths of the tree. I did however manage to get some images of the birds here, when they were in some of the clearer areas of the branches.

Once the sun was up high enough, it was lighting up the valley beyond the garden, with us in a deep shade, so it was onto a bit of planning before the afternoon stint.

I chose to move the perches closer to the feeder, in the hopes that, with them bring pretty much right next to the feeder, they would be more attractive for the birds to stop on. I also tried to photograph from behind my 3D camo net, as it meant I could be lower down. However, that failed fast, with the birds being extra flighty because they could see my movement, this was also when the rain started, so a quick trip inside to swap the net for the chair hide was needed, and right on time also as once inside it really started to come down for a bit.

I was worried that the rain would mean that the birds would disappear, but thankfully it wasn’t too heavy for them and they stuck around. Though they were still a bit reluctant to use my perches, my luck changed when the Greater Spotted Woodpecker arrived. Initially, it was on my woodpecker post but moved onto the sunflower seed feeder and remained for a good while. It was great to see this behaviour, but it also meant that with the woodpecker hogging the feeder, the smaller birds were forced to use some of my perches, allowing me to take some of my best images.

I was using my 200-600 mm lens, which at 600mm is at f6.3, this mixed in with the darker conditions meant that even with a shutter speed of a maximum of 1/500s, the ISO was still reaching 12500 at times (thankfully Lightroom took care of that!). However, with this slower shutter speed, I was able to capture the rain in streaks across the images, which I feel really helps make these images stand out a bit more than they otherwise would.

The woodpecker did eventually move on, and the rain stop, but the birds were now quite happy using my perches, and I got some really lovely images of them in use. The woodpecker did come back a bit later, this time staying on the pecker posts, and I was also able to get some lovely images of that.

Right at the end of my stint in the garden, the Nuthatch, finally, put in a very, very brief appearance on the feeder, and I was able to get an image of that. While it is on the feeder and very much something I consider a record shot, rather than a keeper, it was brilliant to be able to see it myself and not just on the PeckPerk recordings.

While I haven’t been out photographing the garden as much as I probably should have, being out here over these two, one hour stints was brilliant, and I can see where I would like to make a few changes to the feeders and perches, ready for my next stint. I am still yet to photograph the Coal Tit, and that Nuthatch would be amazing to get a proper image of.