Day 29 - 30 Days Wild - Fledglings in the garden

* Today's random act of wildness - Fledglings in the garden *

It's the last but one day today - it has gone so quick! This evening was spend in my shed looking at the birds in the garden. I noticed we are getting a second brood of starling fledglings and a few younf sparrows show up too.

I haven't just fed these birds for the last 30 days I have been feeding them for years and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Cute Starling fledgling

Starling fledgling having a drink in the bird bath

Starling fledgling with adult

This is what I feed them - suet pellets and mealworm

Suet cake (I also feed them fatballs, peanuts etc...)

Sparrows, the one on the right is a fledgling

Male sparrow

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

Day 1 - 30 Days Wild - An Evening Garden Birdwatch

It's back! 

#30DaysWild - A whole month of doing cool wild stuff which I am super excited about it. In case you don't know what it is, for the second year running the Wildlife Trust have launched a campaign where they encourage people to do something 'wild' every day throughout the month of June. This is my second year to do it, I loved it so much last year I didn't want it to end and continued to carry on writing about my adventures in my main blog (www.sands-walks.blogspot.co.uk).

What to do for my first day? Well, unfortunately I had to work today and didn't get home until after six so I thought I would keep it 'very' local and for one hour I sat quietly and watched what birds come into the garden at evening...

*Today's random act of wildness - A evening garden birdwatch*

Well first off I would like you to meet 'Wildling the Fox' he will be my little mascot throughout the 30 days...cute isn't he and proudly wearing my #30DaysWild badge :)

Apart from fatballs, peanuts and coconut shells the birds love this concoction of mealworm and suet pellets. At precisely 6.30pm I put it out for them...

...within seconds we get our first visitor - a feral pigeon.

Next up the sparrows, mostly males tonight.

Then the noisy ones...the starlings

It all starts kicking off on the feeder between the starlings and the pigeons "he's behind you!"

A face off over the suet coconut! 

It's not long before the pigeons give up and move along leaving the starlings victorious of the feeder!

It's just past 7pm and already our list looks impressive!

Next visitor was a magpie...

...then more starlings with a few juveniles

Finally we finish our hour with a few jackdaws (the other is just off camera)

Phew! I thought it would be quiet this time of the night, but great to see so much activity in the garden and what a great way to kick off #30DaysWild with launching it with our regular feathered friends :)

The full list is:

• Starlings - 7
• Jackdaws - 2
• Magpie - 1
• Sparrows - 4
• Wood Pigeon - 1
• Feral Pigeon - 4

Day 8 - 30 Days Wild - Feeding time at the lake

I had quite a busy day today, what with work and a bit of shopping to do this evening - I thought I wouldn't be able to do anything wild. After we left the supermarket we realised that we still had some duck feed left over from yesterday so we went to a nearby lake hoping that there were some birds about.

Fendrod Lake is situated in the middle of an Enterprise Park in Swansea and is around 13 acres. We hadn't visited since winter and were surprised with the amount of bird life on the lake. There were so many swans, Canada geese and mallard that I knew we hadn't brought near enough food!

Here I am with some of the hungry customers

The swans are so cheeky they will even eat out of your hand!

It wasn't long before more and more ducks, geese and swans came over...

...including these gorgeous six goslings.

The goslings weren't the only babies, check our these three cygnets hitching a ride on mum!

"Hello! Look at me!"

Once they came off their mum these white geese chased them off...nasty things!

Lots of birds on the lake.

These white geese were really demanding!

Dan trying to keep up with the many mouths to feed.

A heron even made an appearance, but he was only interested in fishing!

In the nearby banks juvenile sparrows were feeding on some flowers.

We love it at Fendrod Lake and so do these guys x

Even though we thought we wouldn't be doing anything 'wild' today we proved ourselves wrong. Just taking some duck feed to a nearby lake gave us tremendous pleasure and we can't wait to return with MUCH more food!

So my random act of wildness today was 'feeding the ducks'.