Do you feed the birds?

413x

413x

413x

Caporegime
Joined
13 Jan 2010
Posts
33,292
Location
Llaneirwg
Noticed a big increase in the number of birds who come to my feeders.
And I've noticed all of our neighbours have stopped feeding them.

Not sure if it's a cost of living thing.

I live next to a rather wild out of town park, on the very edge of a housing estate with a wild garden and 2 huge oak trees. So get a few birds.

I bet some of you guys get some amazing visitors.

We get
Common
-blue tit
-great tit
-gold finch
-house sparrow
-jackdaw
-ferral pigeon
-wood pigeon

Less common visitors
-Long tailed tit
-coal tit (for first time this week)
-green finch
-blackbirds
-robin
-collard doves

Once or twice
-sparrow hawk
-bull finch


Here's a pic of 2 baby goldfinch waiting thier turn.
10x phone cam pic through a window! So Excuse the quality!
The feeders are in an old dead conifer. Was going to cut it down but birds love it.

GQBA9Yx.jpg
 
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I was but not so much now unfortunately, and this is mostly due to wood pigeons and magpies, being greedy
 
Haze said:
I was but not so much now unfortunately, and this is mostly due to wood pigeons and magpies, being greedy
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Only the jackdaw visit the fat ball feeders. I have a soft spot for jackdaw (had one when I was younger) so I don't mind them. But magpie are a nuisance scaring the other birds off. But I try and scare them off.
 
We used to feed them yeah but have tailed it off over the last year due to the cost :(

We throw out leftovers onto the lawn like fat, oats or crusts of bread but that's it now
 
Yes, all year now. Usually manage to get some cheap and in bulk. The squirrels seem to like it too.

I still feed our hedgehogs too, although the fox has been getting in some nights.
 
My Mother in law, bought one of those window feeders. Its great watching them. Whats funny is they queue up in the hedge and take turns.....Politely
 
gort said:
I've regularly fed garden birds over the past 15 years or so but seen a large drop-off in numbers and species.
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Its the greenfinch. Shocking decline. My favourite too.
They have a particularly nasty disease as well as the standard habitat loss.

I'm only 38 and I remember when I was a kid the flys on the number plate. Never get that now.
 
413x said:
Make sure you wash feeders regularly!
Its very important to stop disease spread.

I'm thinking about trying nuts. They weren't popular last time. But didn't get so many tit visitors back then.
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Once a month :)

I gave up with nuts, they were not popular and went manky. Sunflower hearts and mealworms are always a hit and suet in the colder months.
 
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10 years ago I bought my first house. I moved into a massive new build estate at the start of development I was looking forward to having a bird bath and feeder and watching the birds in my garden, but they never came. Pretty obvious thinking about it, if you flatten miles of farmland, the plants are gone, the bugs are gone, the birds are also gone.

It took years for some nature to return. Now we have mostly:
- starlings
- red kites
- wood pigeons
- magpies
- wagtails
- sparrows

The starlings are a problem, it's a full blown infestation, they need no help.

The red kites are a problem, people feed them, now they snatch food from children.

Bugs emerging from the lawn are a problem, so I prefer not to put food out to force the starlings to pest control the lawn instead.

I'd like to revisit bird feeding one day, but it may have to wait until I live somewhere else. Problem with a new build estate is the houses are so close together and most of them have either a cat or a dog. If I'm a bird I'm not hanging around for long.
 
We live in a small village surrounded by fields and get a variety. Always try and make sure the feeders are full, we usually get a large sack of Sunflower Hearts.

The Birdbath only seems to get used by Sparrows and Blackbirds. That gets shared with the cat and the dogs who like drinking out of it, but then the water bowl for the dogs gets used by the birds.

Regulars
Sparrow
Starling
Blackbird
Robin
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Pigeon
Doves

Occasional
Magpie
Greenfinch
Wren
Nuthatch
Song Thrush, I think
Possibly some other ****, but have not identified yet

Rarely
Spotted Woodpecker, not sure if Lesser or Great
Sparrow Hawk, last time I saw it, it was eating a Blue Tit
Bullfinch

Quite often see and hear the Buzzards high up, never up close though.
Also the sound of Owls is fairly regular in the evenings.
 
Don't actively feed them but if we have bread that's gone stale, we'll tear it up and throw it on the back lawn. Same with fat cuttings off bacon/meat in the winter time.
 
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