The Early Birds !

[Madmills]

Have you noticed the same early birds to your gardens ?

Here, the earliest feeders are ....
Robins, blackbirds, wrens, chaffinches and dunnocks.
They're all here before it gets properly light and then, in order, the linnets, greenfinches, goldfinches and blackcaps arrive along with the various tits.

I thought i was imagining it but they really do have their specific arrival times.

[Tringa]

The main birds on the feeders here are blue tits, great tits, house sparrow, goldfinches, the odd chaffinch and robins.

We have so few chaffinches its hard to say much about their timings, but the blue tits, great tits and robins arrive early and the goldfinches definitely later in the day.

Dave

[Blizzard]

Blackbirds are always the first to start feeding here.

[Lindsay-c]

Yeah in our garden we used to get the robins come first (before blackbirds) but they havent shown up since a couple of them got scrappy with each other and one chased the other from the garden- always recognised them because one was a handome looking robin with alot of white under its wing and the other was very fluffed up... The blackbirds come around lunch time every day, a male and a female, always recognised because the female has some white on her (leucism i assume).
Then the House sparrows then the starlings and more occasionally blue tits

[artdemole]

2 Blackbirds around this morning at dusk here.

[Madmills]

I realised a few minutes ago that i've not seen a single greenfinch today
I have dozens and dozens here - every day of the year.

All the other birds have shown up, as they always do ........ this is very, very queer, not a single one

[willowjay]

Earliest birds here are magpies who stomp around on the roof and chatter loudly at each other. I refuse to open my eyes to see what time it is, but I know the street lights are still on. They finish up whatever seed was left on the patio from the previous evening.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Madmills

Have you noticed the same early birds to your gardens ?

Here, the earliest feeders are ....
Robins, blackbirds, wrens, chaffinches and dunnocks.
They're all here before it gets properly light and then, in order, the linnets, greenfinches, goldfinches and blackcaps arrive along with the various tits.
I thought i was imagining it but they really do have their specific arrival times.

These are all habitual ground feeders so are used to foraging in low light, I seem to recall there was some research on eye size proportion that went along with the early arrival at feeding stations. It's worth looking out for which species are still active into the dusk period - my observation is that it's the same species as the early morning crowd.

CM

[actionfinch]

the robin i hear first , then 5-8 wood pigeons then a blackbird. the robin frietens off the blue tits, but saying that , i had only closed the back door after putting out there feed ( about half 8) then i see 5 LTT on the feeders before robin came swooping through after a blue tit..

[Madmills]

Originally Posted by Cotham Marble

These are all habitual ground feeders so are used to foraging in low light, I seem to recall there was some research on eye size proportion that went along with the early arrival at feeding stations. It's worth looking out for which species are still active into the dusk period - my observation is that it's the same species as the early morning crowd.

CM

Yes, i too read about the larger eyes.
What i didn't make clear, and should have, is that every one of the first 5 i mention are in the rowan tree - along with the others i mention there.

They all go to it and at their different time slots !!!
The tree has 8 seed feeders and a suet block in one of those 'basket/cages'.