Yet Another Cycling Forum
Random Musings => Miscellany => Where The Wild Things Are => Topic started by: clifftaylor on 20 December, 2009, 10:43:13 am
-
Morning everyone.
Please remember to put out food and water for the birdies when it's cold, as the small ones will really be struggling at the moment. :)
-
It'll help to keep them fat for Friday. ;)
-
Good call.
I've been out and topped up the feeders this morning, and put warm water in their bird bath. There are loads of small birds feeding today.
The water's important when everything's frozen - a blackbird didn't even wait for me to back away before he was in there for a drink.
-
Feeders are full. Water is about to be defrosted now :thumbsup:
-
I put bread down most days for them. (The proper seeded stuff)
They'll be alright around here because most of the gardens seem to have birdtables or feeders.
-
Butterfly righted our birdtable & restocked it on friday. Pigeons especially grateful :-\
-
Pigeons especially grateful
Three fat Woodpigeons sat and watched me put out seed , bread and water earlier and have not bothered to avail themselves ... yet.
I feel I should be out turning over the icy soil to help the insect eaters but I can't quite bring myself to do it.
Snake
My Library (http://www.yudu.com/library/6690/Snakehips-s-Library)
-
Bump :thumbsup:
-
Thanks - that reminded me to go and thaw out their drinking water :)
-
Bump :thumbsup:
OK, OK, I've done it ::-)
Mrs Blackbird was waiting for me. I sat about a metre away from the bird seed while she fed. Why can't she do that when I have the camera? :facepalm:
-
I tried hanging fat balls out, but nobody was interested - but crumble them on to the ground, and they're well popular!
Two wagtails have just arrived, plus a dunnock.
-
Bump :thumbsup:
OK, OK, I've done it ::-)
Mrs Blackbird was waiting for me. I sat about a metre away from the bird seed while she fed. Why can't she do that when I have the camera? :facepalm:
Ours barely back off at all now - they're very desperate. The biggest problem is that one of the male blackbirds tries to see off all comers at the ground food feeder
-
I tried hanging fat balls out, but nobody was interested - but crumble them on to the ground, and they're well popular!
Two wagtails have just arrived, plus a dunnock.
Ours rip through the fat balls. I must try putting them on the ground as well though - that's a good plan :)
-
Put broken up seeded crusts out for them earlier this morning.
Thank fuck they've now hoovered it all up and moved on.
No more "chattering" from the kitteh. Peace and quiet at last.
-
We're having the greedy blackbird problem as well - if he carries on eating like this, he won't be able to take off when the cat appears.....
-
The birds in our garden are better fed than some children & elderly folk my work brings me into contact with:certainly more regularly fed.
-
Bump :thumbsup:
I sat about a metre away from the bird seed while she fed. Why can't she do that when I have the camera? :facepalm:
She has obliged (50mm lens, no cropping):
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4245278060_4f12abf962.jpg)
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4005/4244506685_84970961cf.jpg)
-
I heard a report today that Tesco have sold more birdfood this year than ever before.
Snake
My Library (http://www.yudu.com/library/6690/Snakehips-s-Library)
-
We're certainly tearing through it; we buy in bulk from the RSPB these days, but with no couriers daring to do their jobs the stock of some components is getting a bit low....
We have enough feeder seed and ground food, but the peanuts are diminishing, the fat balls are being replenished form the village shop and the niger seed is dwindling..
-
Wilkinsons are doing a tub of 50 fat balls for £6.99. All the usual other stuff as well dirt cheap.
-
they quite like leftover christmas pudding too. Mr Blackbird has been quite protective of it, chasing everyone else away until Mr Magpie appeared. They took a bit longer to get stuck into the stale lemon steamed pudding but the bluetits have finished most of it today.
it's been great watching it out of the office window.
-
The blackbirds have stopped squabbling and are allowing each other and the other birds to eat
Times must be harsh.
-
What is this 'leftover Christmas pudding'?
-
What is this 'leftover Christmas pudding'?
My thought exactly
-
One blackbird has taken ownership of the cotoneaster, if he catches anyone else on it, he gets very cross, but not as aggressive as he gets when he's got babies.
I had nine fat pigeons feeding from time to time this week. The seldom seen woodpecker has been in at least twice a day; there were three green parakeets, but now only two. Strange absence of tits, lots before Christmas, but since then, I've hardly seen any. Lots of chaffinches tho' and a few reed buntings, but fewer than last year.
I suspect other people are now putting out proper food. I've seen a flock of around 60 starlings in the fields at the bottom of the garden, but am getting only a dozen or so on the feeders nowadays. We used to get the whole lot of 'em in. It was chaos at times.
Magpies have occasionally in the past ventured into the garden, grabbed some fat cake and flown off again. This year, I've had four or five in at a time.
A neighbour watches the field for bird life and reports to the British Orthinology wotsit society and sends round reports of what to look out for. Apparently there is a kingfisher about and snipe coming closer to the houses., plus the usual complement of bad weather seagulls - hope they don't find the feeders.
There was a wren in the garage this morning, left some cheese and I hope it's flown. It left me a present on a bike.
I buy seed in 10Kg sacks and stocked up before Christmas. I will need some more ground feeder food in a couple fo weeks, but which time I hope the snow will be gone.
-
Another busy day on the feeders
(http://www.bosphorus.f2s.com/birdfeed.jpg)
Apologies for the crap picture - taken though the kitchen window to avoid frightening them off.
-
Goldfinches. 8) Lucky you.
-
We have them all year here. We have a Nijer seed feeder that they like.
What we're missing at the moment are the siskins.
-
Very unusually we've had Song Thrushes (2 males, still squabbling) in our (long, thin, hedged) garden. Usually they prefer the wide open lawn space of our neighbour, but were after the privet thingy berries.
We also get pheasant, collared dove, wood pigeon, blackbird, sparrows, blue- coal- and great-tit (long-tailed ones seem to go elsewhere in the winter), goldfich, bullfich, chaffinch, stralings, robins, magpies, probably a few others, ond over-flying herons and hovering red kites.
-
Being colour blind & not ornithology-savvy(is that grammatically correct?) I found it interesting that Mrs. Jogler was chuffed up because we had two Redwings in the garden this morning.
I couldn't see the red bits :( & wouldn't appreciate the rarity of the sight without explaination from Mrs. J.. ::-)
-
We have goldfinch, bullfinch and pied wagtails. The chaffinch and blue tits are coming up to the patio door, which they don't normally do, must be out of hunger. We have been defrosting the water two and three times a day for them. Son-in-law mixes the bird seed for us which also contains meal worms.
-
Mrs Blackbird is getting more bolshy. This morning I went into the shed, got my bike out, locked up the shed and made to leave. Then I realised she was sitting in the tree by the feeders, tutting and muttering as if to say indignantly, why didn't you bring me any food when you came out? So I re-opened the shed and got her some.
Told Pingu when I got home and he said she did exactly the same with him when he went to work later.
-
Has anybody tried using those adjustable mesh boxes which are supposed to be able to let you feed the ground feeding smaller birds, while letting you keep out the blasted pigeons and seagulls?
-
I've been wondering about hanging a feeder from the brackets keeping my window boxes on the wall, but I'm two floors up. This might sound like a really stupid question, but would that be too high for small birds? How high do little birds fly? ;D
-
If you build it, they will come.
Yeah, don't worry. It might take them a couple of weeks to find it, but once they do....
-
Maybe I could hang a nesting box as well, but that would probably be way too high for baby birds to learn to fly from. I wouldn't want to be responsible for them plummeting to their squishy deaths. I think I'll get some feeders though.
-
Pingu reckons that nestboxes shouldn't be sited next to feeders anyway.
-
I'm getting small fat balls. ;D
-
Fat balls are very popular
I deployed 3 this morning, and they're almost gone now
-
We have two rather pretty collared doves that visit our bird table every day. They sit on its roof like statues for ten minutes before venturing in and feeding. They like the mixture of seeds and poultry mix I put out on it.
-
Our birds are having to share/compete with a squirrel who passes thru' our garden every morning of late.
-
I was reading in the paper today that the bird food suppliers have been doing their best trade ever recently - to an extent that it made the newspapers....
Good.
-
The RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/) is this weekend. Spend an hour counting the birds you see and send in the data.
-
Apparently Costco are currently selling monster bags of bird seed for four quid.
-
We have loads of food out...
...but no birds. I've had to throw some insect/suet pellets and a fat ball away as they were beginning to go mouldy.
I'm getting small fat balls. ;D
I'd see a doctor if I were you... ;)
-
Another shipment from the RSPB just arrived - about £70's worth :o
That isn't the first this year, though the previous one was less money. it's almost a full time job keeping all the feeders topped up at the mo - the peanut feeder in the back garden needs filling twice a day (and it's not small) and the rest at least once a day.
I have just seen a jay though - and whilst they're not rare it's only the second one I've seen in our garden.
-
The RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/) is this weekend. Spend an hour counting the birds you see and send in the data.
Registered . . .
-
Me too, also :thumbsup:
-
The scores on the doors:
| Blackbird | 4 |
| Blue tit | 2 |
| Carrion crow | 2 |
| Chaffinch | 4 |
| Dunnock | 2 |
| Feral pigeon | 7 |
| Goldfinch | 4 |
| Greenfinch | 1 |
| Jackdaw | 2 |
| Magpie | 1 |
| Robin | 2 |
| Woodpigeon | 2 |
| Fieldfare | 4 |
| Grey Squirrels | 2 |
The bird activity seemed rather low & unusually, no coal tits, great tits or sparrows :(
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4033/4315950480_e7dfe93363.jpg)
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2462/4315949418_81f243f42b.jpg)
-
Poor show from the birds on survey morning.
House Sparrow 2
Wood Pigeon 2
Blackbird 2 (M+F)
Robin 1
Starling 1
I think I started too early, it's a north facing garden and the birds tend to wait until it has warmed up. Am very jealous of Pingu's results -- perhaps I should move back to Aberdeen.
No coal, blue or great tits, dunnocks, corvids or gulls.
-
I've not been feeding the birds lately. Since becoming adopted by two cats, I feel less certain about putting out "bait" for small feathery things.
I did spot a family of long-tailed tits on next-doors feeders earlier in the week. One of them had a short tail and had me utterly confused until I saw the rest of the flock.
You could say it had me stumped.
-
I've not been feeding the birds lately. Since becoming adopted by two cats, I feel less certain about putting out "bait" for small feathery things.
Sometimes putting out food actually makes them safer from cats as you get more birds so there are more pairs of eyes looking out for predators.
I suspect, however, that having our three wandering around the garden for the first portion of the 'hour' didn't help our scores. I don't have the individual scores, but we were one species down on last year (which surprised me - I thought it there would have been three or four less). Numbers were very similar. And I saw the first greenfinch we've had in the garden for ages.
S
-
It's taken them a while to find it, but they've eaten all the fat balls and had a wee taste of the peanuts but ignored everything else, the ungrateful little tweety fuckers.
ETA: pmsl. I put new fat balls out, put the debris in the bin and then went downstairs to put the recycling in the bins. Downstairs, I looked up at the feeders and realised why the fat balls all disappeared within a week - a very agile crow (well, maybe - black feathers, black beak, black legs) was hanging from the feeder and having a good go at the contents.