Good news / Bad news.

First the good news, we have been doing well with Goldfinches visiting the feeders in our garden.

It seemed to take ages to attract them onto the Nyjer seed but eventually they took to arriving

on a regular basis, in fact it became more unusual not to see them. One pair has definitely had one brood with two or three youngsters. Today when I was making breakfast I looked out to see at least four adults and three or four youngsters which is the most I have seen in the garden at one time, so I went to work quite pleased with the way things were going.

Later on in the morning I rang my wife to see whether the post I had been waiting for had arrived, only to be told that one of our dogs had caught a bird in the garden and that by the time she had got it off the dog, it was already dead. She told me she thought it was one of the young Goldfinches but was not sure, so she kept it for me to identify. Unfortunately it was one of the youngsters so that was the bad news for the day. I was surprised the dog had managed to catch it, I said to my wife we will have to put a bell on him like a cat collar!.