What have you seen

TG are they Processional pine caterpillars or Thaumetopoea pityocampa which are quite common to Spain and France.  The caterpillars turn into moths.  They are a pest and can damage trees and also present danger to animals, see link below:

https://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/2367/the-plague-of-pests-in-our-pine-trees

You definitely want to stay away from the processional pine caterpillars, particularly with pets. We have them down where I used to have my apartment. Nasty little blighters.

Our hedgehog, now named Arbuthnott, has been collected by hedgehog haven. Who have agreed it can be returned to us, subject to our garden being inspected 😲, in the spring.

 Thanks OP and Cyber, yes that is what we saw, funnily there was only one of the nest that had the caterpillars all over it crawling about, the other nests we could see (there were lots of them) were just the silky cocoon, no caterpillars on show. I had heard of these caterpillars on another forum but didn't  realise they were one and the same.

Bakers2,  glad the little fellow got collect, hope you do get him back. We miss our one the snails are taking over 

The (very) cold snap has brought lots of birds onto our garden feeders this morning. Mainly the usual gang, just more of them, but also an invasion of siskins and nuthatches. Keeping the feeders well topped up. 😊

This is when all our windfall apples start to be useful, the blackbirds and fieldfares love them.

Pliers

What food are you putting out that attracts siskin and nuthatch. We have quite a choice, but only sparrow and Tits so far. A few goldfinch on one messy day, so bought some niger seed, but they have not returned.

Hi, Blue,

We don't feed anything special! We have 3 seed feeders, one for niger, the other 2 for sunflower hearts and standard "no mess" seed mix. We also have a hanging fat ball feeder and a ground table where we use our local pet shop's mix, which contains seeds, dried mealworms, small fat pellets and other delights 🤔

We live in a moorland edge village ( Newchurch in Pendle) and have only a small garden.

It's surprising how much our garden birds have varied over the years. 10 years ago, we rarely saw a goldfinch or a coal tit. Now, they are by far the most common visitors to our feeders.

Siskins, we usually get in the winter, but they've arrived in large numbers now, feeding on the niger and seed feeders.

The nuthatches have been trying to use the hanging feeders, but have so far failed and are hoovering up the ground food. They are quite aggressive towards the other garden birds, who just ignore them.

All very entertaining!

No Siskins at Sculthorpe yesterday which is unusual.

a couple of miles from this CL are a mix flock of Fieldfares and redwings, I would think 100+

Good day today, took a walk from Burnham Norton out into the marshes toward the sea.  Saw 50+ flock of curlew, hundreds of geese, stonechats, a single Linnet, a great white egret and a dozen little egrets, oystercatchers etc., etc.

Will go to Titchwell tomorrow.

Thanks Pliers.

We have almost an identical menu so perhaps we will get a wider variety as the weather gets colder. Siskin have been spotted at Chew Valley Lake, so fingers crossed.