Birds/birding

Just sparrows in the front garden feeding on suet balls, suet pellets and soaked dry mealworms. Out the back not much activity at all at the moment because I moved the bird table and they just don’t like it they are very suspicious....?

Do you think if I soaked the mealworms the birds might actually eat them, Shinamae?

Mind you, I'm not sure that I can be doing with pernickety birds that need their food to be soaked

Whitewavemark2^Soon if not today even - there will be extremely noisy babies in the garden demanding to be fed.

It costs a fortune.^

It certainly does - we never had starlings until about three years ago, now we are inundated. The first gathering with babies arrived this morning - 15 starlings in all. They can clean out the feeders in about 20 minutes.

Very determined pigeon!

I put out a small bird mixture, sunflower hearts and mealworms. The starlings don’t even wait until my back is turned before they descend in droves to hoover up the mealworms. The goldfinches love swinging on the sunflower heart feeder but don’t do it so much since a sparrowhawk started to visit for a snack. It’s horrible when you see it up in the tree ripping bits off its latest catch but that’s nature. Better that than next door’s cat that I have to keep chasing from its hiding place under a bush.

We’ve tried leaving food out, but it just went off, or the pigeons scoffed it, no cats around. There are birds around, they still come in the garden, blackbirds, thrush, sparrows, robins, they just have a peck about, the sparrows a dust bath. We had a flock of goldfinches last year and a sparrow hawk occasionally.

Fat ball feeders were my greatest success. I had all seven blue tit babies feeding in it one day.

Aren’t goldfinches beautiful. Had one in the front garden last week.

We have birds of the night. There is a bat roosting in the tiles on the wall under my living room window. He flies around the house early evening which is lovely. I have heard a lot of tapping in the wall in the middle of the day, which sounds like bat DIY. Maybe he is digging the wall out. I want to buy a bat box but have to get agreement from the others as it's a shared garden. I hope no-one is freaky about bats.

We live near some man made lakes so have Canadian geese fly over daily but they make such a mess on the garden! The are mute swans in the field at the back and lapwings must be nesting someone where as they are so vocal. Red Kites, Buzzards, Peregrine falcons, sparrow hawks, loads of sparrows <and pigeons sigh> a daily pheasant, partridge, dunnocks, robins, lots of finches that I can never remember which is which. We also have some BRIGHT yellow birds which I thought were budgies but they are some sort of finch. Next have big feeders out and none of these houses have cats afaik which must make it safer for the little birds. I must admit though I find the sparrows the most entertaining

We took all our feeders away a few weeks ago because a rat came visiting - one arrives every year at about this time, probably because they are feeding as well. We were a bit concerned that the birds wouldn't visit the garden as so many of our neighbours feed the birds but they still come. Not in the same numbers, but still quite an assortment.

One of the things that brings them is the bird bath (well, it's a big, deep plant tray really) as they all visit for a regular bath. A few years ago there were 13 blue tits sitting around it, looking for all the world like a bunch of schoolboys at their first swimming lesson, shaking their wings and hopping about - almost like they were saying 'You go' 'No, you go first' 'I'm not going. You go' . Eventually they all jumped in and splashed around - absolutely hilarious to watch.

We have a small, but burgeoning, reed bed near us and were delighted last year to hear reed warblers had moved in. It sounds as if there is more than one pair. We haven’t seen them yet, but they are a joy to listen to and we feel privileged to have them here. This is not the Norfolk marshes (sadly), it is post industrial South Yorkshire, and the reeds were planted to sweeten the ground water from the old pit workings. There’s an island in our country park that has a heronry on it. We are so used to seeing them in water, it’s quite strange to see them sitting in trees!

Amberone, that's why I find the sparrows entertaining, as there are many you can see their behaviours. It is so endearing isn't it?