Very busy at the bird feeder today! (7 Viewers)

[Bananafishbones]

A lovely female Sparrowhawk perched amongst the feeders, eventually 2 Magpies attempted to mob her whilst she just sat and ignored them..... they jumped around and flapped no more tham a foot away from her, 15 minutes later she moved away from the irritating duo.

 

[earleybird]

Maybe a sprinkling of extra strong curry powder where they wait? Not harmful, but a tad off putting.

I hope you don't mind me saying that i'm not so sure that that is a particularly kind method

Cats spend most of their time licking themselves (when they are not asleep.)
i think if the powder got stuck on their feet ,perhaps after dew ,frost or rain, it might cause them some considerable distress when licking their feet.

its not going to be particularly healthy for ground feeding birds or other mamals like squirrels, foxes, hedgehogs,etc.

i know cats can be a real nusience (I have two of my own) but I'm sure that there must be safer and less harmfull methods of protecting our garden birds:t:

We have put down 3x roof slates in our garden where they catch the sun. Not only are they brilliant protection for reptiles, amphibians,mammals and invertebrates, the local cats will spend hours sleeping on them when they warm up in the morning sun. Keeps them away from our feeding areas:t:

 

[earleybird]

A lovely female Sparrowhawk perched amongst the feeders, eventually 2 Magpies attempted to mob her whilst she just sat and ignored them..... they jumped around and flapped no more tham a foot away from her, 15 minutes later she moved away from the irritating duo.

Amazing priviledge to be able to watch one from close quarters isn't it!

Our female was in the garden twice yesterday morning. The second time she caught a small bird and the shrieking of that poor bird was absolutly dreadful. You could hear the terror in its squawk and it went on continuously for over 3x minutes before the Sparrowhawk dispatched it in next doors orchard.

Sadly I believe it was one of our remaining Goldfinches :-C

 

[roger1234]

nice selection of birds at the feeders this afternnon include
2 long tailed tits
18 goldfinches
2 chaffinches
8 greenfinches
2 coal tits
3 blue tits
along with magpie,5 collard doves and 2 blackbirds in the garden

 

[earleybird]

thats an impressive number of goldies Roger.!

Do you find yours are eating sunflower hearts predominantly ? or nijer ?
Ours haven't touched the nijer in months despite scrupulously cleaning the feeder and periodic refilling.

 

[roger1234]

thats an impressive number of goldies Roger.!

Do you find yours are eating sunflower hearts predominantly ? or nijer ?
Ours haven't touched the nijer in months despite scrupulously cleaning the feeder and periodic refilling.

hi earlybird
it is mainly nijer they much prefer than sunflower

 

[earleybird]

thats interesting.! ... ours initially would feed on nothing but nijer even when the hearts were hanging next to the nijer seed. About May this year I noticed our 3x goldies were mainly feeding on the hearts ?

I suspected that the nijer seed has become mouldy due to using a huge 24 station feeder so stripped and cleaned it more regularly. it seems our goldies are happy to stay with the hearts now :-O I've just ordered another heart feeder as all the GT BT CT and even sparrows are prefering the hearts at the moment and they are all patiently queueing

 

[roger1234]

thats interesting.! ... ours initially would feed on nothing but nijer even when the hearts were hanging next to the nijer seed. About May this year I noticed our 3x goldies were mainly feeding on the hearts ?

I suspected that the nijer seed has become mouldy due to using a huge 24 station feeder so stripped and cleaned it more regularly. it seems our goldies are happy to stay with the hearts now :-O I've just ordered another heart feeder as all the GT BT CT and even sparrows are prefering the hearts at the moment and they are all patiently queueing

the other way round for me earlybird,last year they loved the sunflowers,but after putting more nijer seed out this year they have moved over now to the nijer,hopefully there will be some redpolls this year.:t:

 

[bongofury]

1 4 Lesser Redpoll and the male

Nice:t:

No sign of Redpolls here yet, but 3 Siskins finally came out of the trees to fed on the nijer seed this morning.

 

[barnstormer]

sparrowhawk

Just a couple of shots of our daily visitor taken from the bedroom window recently. The little sod won't turn to face me though..........

 

[Bananafishbones]

Just a couple of shots of our daily visitor taken from the bedroom window recently. The little sod won't turn to face me though..........

Thats what you call keeping an eye on the feeders...... super bird

 

[Bananafishbones]

welcome back earlybird

 

[earleybird]

welcome back earlybird

thank you:t:

Think I've been suffering a bit of depression the past year or so as i've not been myself .:-C I've been someone else lol

Good to be back and see all of you are all still here .

I'm hoping to rebuild our feeding station and create a true wild garden over the winter and hopefully bring the birds closer to the house in order to ressurect my love of wildlife photography.

I've been searching for a good source of bulk-buy bird feeds without much success , perhaps someone would kindly give me some recommendations

 

[earleybird]

Just a couple of shots of our daily visitor taken from the bedroom window recently. The little sod won't turn to face me though..........

cracking captures !:t: I know folk who would give anything to get some shots of such a stunning bird .!:-O

Pity about the poor light at this time of year.

 

[barnstormer]

cracking captures !:t: I know folk who would give anything to get some shots of such a stunning bird .!:-O

Pity about the poor light at this time of year.

Yeah he'll be back this afternoon about 2pm you can set your watch by him lately, hope the sun gets out a bit.....Oh well downstairs to make some fat balls.

 

[Bananafishbones]

and to think its December

Black Headed Gull over the garden with FULL summer \ breeding plumage..... good clarification of how mild it is? or do the odd ones keep it all year?

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Black Headed Gull over the garden with FULL summer \ breeding plumage..... good clarification of how mild it is? or do the odd ones keep it all year?

Not unusual for odd birds to have all black heads during the winter months but I think the mild weather this winter is increasing the number of birds showing this plumage.

CB

 

[bongofury]

Just a couple of shots of our daily visitor taken from the bedroom window recently. The little sod won't turn to face me though..........

I actually quite like the shots of her looking back like that. Great captures.

Putting the bin out this morning, I discovered a strewn collection of pigeon feathers. Looks like someone had a good meal yesterday.

I've also noticed the price increase in sunflower hearts. I usually buy the 6kg bag from Pets At Home which used to be around £17.99. They've changed their packaging and while the price is still the same, its now a 5kg bag:C

To try and help minimise the amount of sunflower hearts taken, I bought a smaller feeder and put mixed seed in which is much cheaper. Seems to be working, plus its an extra feeder out there so there's less fighting.

 

[catbasket]

We use food4wildbirds.co.uk buying 50kg of sunflower hearts for £80 which works out at £1.60 per kilo. They do a 12.55kg bag for £24 (currently £23!) and have free next day delivery on orders over £20.

It's been colder here this last week and numbers for the regulars are way up. We are probably getting record numbers of house sparrows, great tits and blue tits but there are just too many to count - often there can be around twenty GTs and BTs at the feeders, but when all three(?) gangs of sparrows arrive at the same time it is chaos. There must be fifty or more, with even more in the hedgerow opposite. I just cannot seem to get a photo which gives an impression of how busy it is out there :C Yet

On the 28th we had larger than usual numbers of gulls overhead, but on the 29th what must have been another record. I grabbed a couple of snaps, and taking these as an average there may have been up to a couple of thousand overhead. Amazing sight!



And some sparrows on our neighbours wall. They quite often do something like this - feeding on insects maybe??




Best of all, yesterday a female GSW was on the peanut feeder again. No photo though.

 

[bongofury]

We use food4wildbirds.co.uk buying 50kg of sunflower hearts for £80 which works out at £1.60 per kilo. They do a 12.55kg bag for £24 (currently £23!) and have free next day delivery on orders over £20.

Thanks Cat, that's a really good price:t: