Who's been at your bird feeders?

[Chris N]

Peanuts only seem to go down well here with the mice that live under next door's shed.  Cute little buggers.

[Mrs Pingu]

Not just Mrs B, but a whole squad of Blackbirds waiting for me this morning. One jumped down onto the ground and then fluttered about pathetically in the deep snow. I can't work out if it was just swimming thru the snow, or if it was trying to look pathetic asif to say, <cockney>'ear missus, give a poor hungry blackbird a worm'</cockney>

[a lower gear]

Fat-based 'stuff' (usually home-made) is rejected here (SE Carmarthenshire) too. Maybe the local birds are unused to it. I've given up making it.

Squirrels are irksome (we have a local grey pair that raid the bird feeders). We've kept the cage feeder safe from them by suspending it by a thin copper wire in the middle of the upper level of our old-fashioned clothes-line. At the moment though, due to the snow, we've risked reverting to hanging the cage feeder from a branch of a conifer as there is bare grass beneath and this allows the larger birds to find the seeds that fall. My American father-in-law lives in a squirrel-infested well-wooded suburb and has tried every possible sort of baffle with little success. He has found axle grease liberally smeared on the supports and wires for feeders to be the most successful deterrent with the bonus that it also keeps racoons off (a racoon is essentially a giant destructive squirrel - don't believe the cute Disney image). Only problem with axle grease is the attraction of grandchildren's clothes to it...

[Cudzoziemiec]

But what by? A can't imagine any bird the size of a jay or crow could have taken it. We have buzzards and sparrowhawks here, perhaps one of them, but haven't seen them recently. Or a neighbour's cat - too high up for a dog.

A fox could smell a piece of bacon from a long distance away. They can jump over 6ft fences.
I had a dead Wood Pigeon in my garden last week , killed by a cat. It lay on the ground untouched all day and disappeared just after dark , when the fox makes its first visit of the evening.

That makes sense. We don't have many foxes here (Poland) but there are a few in the forest. Normally they stay there but we saw fox prints in the snow a week ago and actually saw one in the field about 300m from the house at midday Thursday. Probably the winter has made them bolder in their search for food.

[henshaw11]

Oh dear, we seem to have a visitor who's being a real PITA for some of the other birds - a pied wagtail - the first time we've seen one in the garden (tho' they're often in the nearby station carpark)
 
Appeared yesterday..and has proceeded to largely monopolise the caged tray feeder on the ground. Even when it's not inside it, it's patrolling so as to chase off any robins etc.

He seems to have cleared off now, might just mean the feeder's down to the frozen layer underneath.

I think the largest single group we've had in the last few years is jackdaws - yesterday there was 'only' 20-odd, in the past we've had as many as 36 in one go.

[border-rider]

We had a rat hoovering up the dropped bits just now.  I don't begrudge him that in this weather.  If you're not troubled by them, they're quite cute too

[Cudzoziemiec]

Rats - they're merely pigeons which haven't learned how to fly!

[Tail End Charlie]

Rooks, rooks and more rooks. They keep everything else away.

[andygates]

An actual BURD.  Snow keeps the cats in, so it's safe...

[Rig of Jarkness]

Today a trio of jackdaws have discovered the fat balls and seem to be liking them.  It's nice to see something other than wretched squirrels tucking in.

[Butterfly]

Something managed to knock the fat balls onto the floor yesterday, but before I could re-instate them, one of the foxes ran off with them. I hope he doesn't get the mesh caught in his teeth .

[Bledlow]

Just ordinary birds. Blue & great tits, robins, green, gold & chaffinches, dunnocks sometimes, pigeons & collared doves on the ground cleaning up the bits they drop, sometimes blackbirds ditto in winter.

Mrs Pingu: blackbirds happily eat berries & seeds at this time of year, & will go for bits of meat. They don't mind it cooked, or turn their beaks up at leftovers.

[Mrs Pingu]

I tried getting Mrs B to take worms from my (gloved, don't want them getting strep or anything) hand yesterday, but my knees refused to squat in an uncomfortable position for that long so I gave up. I put out a pear for them this morning, as well as the usual seed and worms. Mr B was there today as well, but he doesn't seem to be as forward as the female.

Leftover? What's leftovers

[Bledlow]

Mrs B won't lick plates, so sometimes there are shreds left on hers.

[MikeFromLFE]

Something managed to knock the fat balls onto the floor yesterday, but before I could re-instate them, one of the foxes ran off with them. I hope he doesn't get the mesh caught in his teeth .

  no no no ...... take the plastic mesh off the fatballs before you put them out; use a fat ball feeder. The plastic mesh gets caught in beaks, legs, tongues etc : see    http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=173578   and     http://www.rspbliverpool.org.uk/helpingfood.htm

[border-rider]

We were inundated this afternoon. Absolutely packed bird feeders, and queues on the guide wires for our telegraph poles.

Poor little things 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

We've hung feeders and coconut halves and fat/mealworm  thingies in the trees around the car park at work, but the birds don't seem to have found them yet. I'm thawing and refilling a water dispenser twice a day too. And my colleagues are putting out salad for the rabbits!

[Bledlow]

... my colleagues are putting out salad for the rabbits!

Making sure they're nice & plump for later?

[Mrs Pingu]

Mr Blackbird only this morning. Dunno what he did with his missus.

[border-rider]

Goldcrest today.

Only the second one I've ever seen.

[Tail End Charlie]

Loads of blackbirds. Also the robins which usually fight amongst themselves are feeding together. I presume they realise they are all in this together and have formed some sort of coalition.

[Snakehips]

A Song Thrush.

Now that might not seem very exciting to many of you , but it's the first I've seen in my back garden for about 15 years , so I'm trilled to bits.

Snake

[Notsototalnewbie]

Something managed to knock the fat balls onto the floor yesterday, but before I could re-instate them, one of the foxes ran off with them. I hope he doesn't get the mesh caught in his teeth .

  no no no ...... take the plastic mesh off the fatballs before you put them out; use a fat ball feeder. The plastic mesh gets caught in beaks, legs, tongues etc : see    http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=173578   and     http://www.rspbliverpool.org.uk/helpingfood.htm

That had never occurred to me, I've been hanging them off a hook on their mesh for ages.  I managed to get a fatball feeder in Poundland today so fatballs will be in that from now on; I'd hate it if one of them got caught.

When I leave for work in the morning they are all waiting in the tree; I only tend to see them if I'm at home during the day. I suspect they come down when I go out and the dog is shut away for the day. I have blackbirds, thrushes, bluetits, sparrows, and a lovely little robin. I've been defrosting the birdbath each day, which they seem grateful for.

[JStone]

Redwing have finally arrived in BS7 - eight of them stripping berries off the pyracantha this morning.

[LindaG]

Today:

Several blackbirds, scrapping among themselves between courses.
A mistle thrush. 
A song thrush.   
Greenfinches.
Coal tit.
Blue tit.
Great tit.