In message , Alan Johnson
writes
Gopher wrote:

You seem to have a good variety of birds. Put out nyjer seed and you
will probably get the stars of the finches - the goldfinch & siskin.-
although I'd love to be able to attract bullfinches to our garden. We
see them occasionally but they're spectacularly shy. Your woodpecker
is almost certainly a Great Spotted Woodpecker. In Germany you
normally have 4 woodpeckers - Green, Great Spotted, Lesser Spotted
and Black .... we don't get the Black in the UK. You are very
fortunate to have the Hawfinch - relatively rare here. They usually
travel in small groups prefering tall deciduous trees like beech and
oak (and cherries; they crack to stones with their massive beaks).
They also appear in old yew trees - about a dozen or so caused quite
a commotion when they visited the churchyard in our small Dorset
village a year or so ago. They stayed about 2 months in the old yews
had a fair amount of twitchers coming to tick them off their list.

Gopher,

In the summer we have even more bird varieties. I'll have to seriously
try and identify more of them. I've only seen the Hawfinch once ot
twice before. It was that big beak that gave it away. We chopped down a
number of trees but we have a lot of hazel in our garden and the
neighbour's - that's what seems to attract the woodpecker. We also have
a cherry tree, but I don't think that's what attracted the Hawfinch
last week... :-) You're right, though, it'll be a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Thanks and regards

I lived for quite a time in Germany too attending University in Würzburg
and then lived on in Bavaria for a time. All quite some time ago but I
recall being enthralled watching Bluethroats (Blaukehlchen) under one of
the bridges outside the town centre. Loads of birding opportunities in
Germany.

Brgds.
--
Gopher .... I know my place!