The various birds that have “invaded” gardens from their former farmland haunts in the last few years include the yellowhammer and reed bunting. There is a much longer list of birds that formerly inhabited mainly woodland and some of these may be a surprise. Good examples are the great, coal and blue tits that have, for a long time, been firm favourites with people who feed garden birds. It was only a few years ago that another member of the woodland family of birds, the long-tailed tit, also started to come to garden feeders. Even more recently is the possibility of the very rare breeding bird, the crested tit following this trend. Each year there seems to be more records of this tiny bird that in the UK is confined to the north of Scotland. Two other birds are worthy of mention and one is the very attractive nuthatch that has been seen in a few gardens in the last two or three years. It could well be that the spread of his bird northwards into the Highlands has been halted, hopefully for only a short periods, by the last two severe winters. Even the very rare Scottish crossbill has been seen at garden feeders.
Another bird of woodland origin is the siskin that is so common in most gardens in the Highlands now that we just tend to accept them as regular garden visitors. Even as I write there are six or seven siskins on two feeder only four feet from where I am sat. Siskins now delight us at feeders virtually all the year round but for short period they leave gardens and resort back to the pinewoods they originally came from. The reason is that the warmth of the sun sometimes open up the fir cones and reveals one of their favourite foods the cone seed. In the spring both the male and females siskin come to feeders in gardens and then the females are absent. This is because they are incubating eggs and whilst they are doing this the males will bring in food for them. Then both sexes appear again and they often fly off to feed their young. Then the young appear over about a two week period and the feeders are often so busy it is a job to keep them filled up each day. If the weather is reasonable then there may well be a second brood and the ritual starts all over again.
It is amongst the small birds that originate from woodland and now come to garden feeders that there lies a mystery that, perhaps, may have begun to unfold. At certain times of the year, but especially in the winter, there are mixed flocks of siskins and lesser redpolls in the countryside. In southern parts of the UK the lesser redpolls have become regular birds at feeders alongside siskins. Already this back end of the year there have been reports from English gardens of small groups of lesser redpolls turning up daily at garden feeders. So far, in last couple of years, records of redpolls in Highland gardens have been few and far between. It is difficult to say why this is. Certainly down south it has taken a long time since the first siskins came into feeders and so in the Highlands it might be just a matter of time before the lesser redpolls come in. I have only seen one in our garden, last year, and it stayed for half an hour feeding on a peanut feeder and has not been seen since. So keep your eyes open.