I started writing this post in early February, which is why
It seemed to find itself further down my blog, so I
thought I would bump it to the top where it belongs. I
published it fully on February 27th Hope you enjoy it

Dara ☺️🐦🐦

Naturalist Dara

Ok, I admit it, just sometimes I want to look out the window to the garden and catch sight of something different. A new flash of colour, a song that’s unusual and a new species to admire and learn from – close up. During February we had exactly that opportunity, two beautiful new garden bird species to observe from the kitchen window!The first encounter came the day after the day after the Big Garden Birdwatch, just typical of nature to keep you on your toes! One glamourous Goldfinch shortly followed by another; a fabulous addition to our growing garden population!

The Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) is a gregarious and social bird, it didn’t take long for the hordes to arrive to demolish the sunflower hearts – interestingly the male goldfinches’ beak is highly adapted to extracting teasel seeds (the beaks differ between sexes – I’m going to find out more about this). The collective…

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