Birds in the Garden

[Harrison]

What birds are you all getting in your gardens at the moment?

And do you feed them?

We get lots of Greenfinches. I've counted up to 14 some mornings and often there are 3 or 4 on each of the feeders at a time. They only eat Black sun flower seeds and can empty a reasonable sized feeder in a couple of days.

We now have 3 feeders out for them, and it seems different groups use different feeders, with them fighting if they try to use each others.

We also have some pretty Gold finches whith love nyjer (niger) seed, although how they eat those little tiny seeds is mad. They even open the seeds in they beaks.

We also get blackbirds and robins, sparrows, a couple of ring neck doves and one big old wood pigeon.

Occasionally we do get some others such as blue tits, long tailed tits, black caps and a few other finches, but generally it is mostly the Greenfinches all day, and the gold finches visiting a couple of times during the day.

Yesterday whilst gardening they were complaining about me being there. The green finches were causing a lot of noise. The black bird got quite brave and was hopping around on the grass eating bits not far from me. And even a Gold finch went into one of the feeders while I was in the garden, which they haven't done before.

When we first started the garden and tried to attract some birds we couldn't get any to visit the garden, so it shows you have to establish a food source and just be patient. They will eventually come.

We now even have some binoculars specifically to watch the birds in the garden. How sad is that? Getting old...

[Phantom]

The only birds that can see right now are pigeons.

[1980-20..]

Unfortunatley we have quite a large populaton of magpies wich keep most other birds away, get the ocasional black bird and wood pidgeon. One of the neighbours saw a barn owl that had caught itself a pidgeon, didnt think theyd go for anything that big!!.

[Buleste]

I'm fortunate enough to live somewhere that can just about be called rural so I get lots of different birds. Plus because I have 3 cats, for the last few years I've been doing some predation off setting, although the cats haven't caught anything for a while (touch wood). I've also been participating in the RSPB great Birdwatch for the last couple of years.

At the moment we have the following as regular visitors.
Starlings
Blackbirds
Robins
House Sparrows
Hedge Sparrows
Gold Finches
Siskins
Blue Tits
Coal Tits

This winter because it was bad we had a lot of unusual visitors like Dunnocks, Mistle Thrushes, Wagtails, Song Thrushes and a few others.

The other day there was even a chase between a pigeon and a Sparrow Hawk. They flew across my garden into my neighbours and there was an explosion of feathers. But because my neighbours kids were playing outside the Sparrow Hawk got spooked, lost it's grip on the pigeon who subsequently flew off back in the direction it came with the Sparrow Hawk in hot pursuit.

Like you Harrison I have some brazen blackbirds an gold finches who are quite happy to feed even though either the cats or myself are a few feet away.

If you feed your birds dried mealworms (I get mine from Wilkinsons as they are the cheapest) make sure you soak them in water before putting them out as at this time of the year the parent birds will take them back to the chicks so the soaking will make them more palatable.

[Buleste]

Bloody bastard Siskins......I've been trying to take a photograph of them on my feeder for days and every time I go to get my camera the sods fly off.