General Chat

Are there less garden birds this year?

Last winter i had to re-fill the suet ball hanger (4 balls) everyday and also the 2 seed feeders.

This year i have not seen many birds at all, but i have noticed an increase of cats in my garden although i have placed carpet slats under all the feeders to keep them at bay.

I just don't seem to see many birds in general, and i think this is so sad.. :-(

Got lots of them in the garden always make sure they have plenty of wild birdfood and fatballs,plus drinking and bathing water,its nice to see them . :-D

i think my cats have ate them all :-( :-(

Not so many in this area this year, hardly eating the food at all. over the road has about 6 cats and next to her has 3 :-( :-(but they rarely come in our back garden.

Joy, please ask your cats to refrain from catching birds..

Maybe they are going elsewhere then,

i still have my faithful robin, he feeds from a feeder stuck to my kitchen window ( that is where the mealworms are.. he isn't daft lol)

I put stuff out for the birds, like left over bread etc but don't make a special effort .

Last week I found hiding at the back of the fridge a "loaf", of stuffing mixed with sausage meat that I had baked (in a small bread tin) for Christmas. its easier that way to slice up.

Rather than binning it I cut it into quarters and put at the bottom of the garden my thinking was if the birds wont touch it the fox`s might fancy it for the sausage meat content
Anyway, looks like old foxy never got a lookin the birds loved it.
I saw Magpies, Blackbirds, Sparrows, Starlings and a Robin attacking the pieces, but was surprised to see our local Woodpigeons having a taste for it though.

Talking about surprises just before Christmas and during last week on 2 separate occasions I espied on next doors fence a pair of Turtle Doves, Mating! :-0
weird at this time of year.
Has anyone else come across this ? not particularly the right time of year to be laying eggs I would have thought.

Think the Turtle Doves must have been practicing ready for spring...lol

Practice makes perfect! :-D

I`ll let "her Indoors" know about that Stella . :-D :-D :-D

Quite often doves will stat to nest in February, unless the weather is too severe.

There seems to be the usual number of birds in my garden - with the exception of greenfinches, and goldfinches. Haven't seen them all winter, and I usually do.

I buy a sack of wild bird food at a time for the feeders, and niger seed especially for the goldfinches, but no sign of them. The tits are eating it instead.

Tec :-)

Budgie.. :-D :-D :-D

i think February is the start of the mating season for most birds...

That's what I was always led to believe the 14th "St Valentines Day", the birds wedding day. :-D

I was just reading about that on Google Budgie.. :-)

Awwww ya don't need Google when ya got me...

I`m a mine of useless information.









Ps... I got it all off Google, or was it Bing? :-D :-D :-D

Hahaha..well you certainly knew something i didn't...lol
:-D :-D

Joan, i also buy fatballs in a big tub a much better way to buy and store them.. :-)

I have so many Garden birds here I can't count them .I have a window feeder and have to fill it 2 to 3 times a day.It's costing me a fortune :-S.It's bedlam when they all come to feed at the same time,and battles. :-S..But I do love them all :-D

Aw jane,

i must be doing something wrong, mine have almost all deserted my garden :-(

Amongst all the usual visitors, we now have two pheasants (think they are male) who visit daily several times. They are weird, plod around pecking the ground now and then. So much bigger than the rest of the birds who busily vie for any food available and completely ignore the larger featherd species.

We still have lots of birds in the garden, the other side of the hedge is a big field where there are loads of gulls every day. We have blackbirds, robins, doves and sparrows, as well as lots of starlings, and a huge flock of some kind of finches. They are the ones who storm the feeders so o.h. is refilling them daily. The doves are crafty tho they and some pigeons sit below the feeders and hoover up the dropped seeds and a couple of them were even sitting on a branch near the feeders and nudging them so that some seeds fell out. Too flippin' clever!

The blackbirds were happy yesterday when I tossed out some overripe bananas. The bread I throw out disappears in a flash!

Lizx