UK, snow coming - remember to feed the birds

[rolfw]

For our UK members, with a period of cold weather promised, please make an effort to feed the birds in your garden, as they find it very difficult to locate food in snowy conditions.

If you don't already, you can buy suet balls in all pet shops and most supermarkets, these are high energy and help the small birds to survive this type of weather, they are easy to hang up on bushes and trees, even on fence posts. Porridge oats sprinkled on a snow free surfaces are great for Robins, Sparrows and Blackbirds, plus many kitchen scraps like bits of apple and small pieces of bread.

 

[guest]

Doing well this year already:

Long Tailed Tits, Nuthatch, Blue/Coal/Willow/Great Tits, Sparrows

Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Robin, Blackbird

Redstarts - big flock ground feeding a couple of weeks ago.

Heron in the fields yesterday. Buzzard likewise.

Little Owls in a nearby abandoned building.

 

[satelliteman]

We get sparrows, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, dunnocks & wagtails.
They seem to eat more than I do at late , lol ..since half our shopping is bird food. Nice to see and hear in the morning

 

[guest]

We get sparrows, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, dunnocks & wagtails.
They seem to eat more than I do at late , lol ..since half our shopping is bird food. Nice to see and hear in the morning

.............. apart from the Collared Doves/Wood Pigeons :-boom

 

[Analoguesat]

If you enjoy the birds in the garden then join the BTO Garden Birdwatch scheme

You log your weekly observations then submit them and the BTO can pick up long term variations in bird numbers.

Ive been doing it 8 or 9 years and in that time have noted a decrease in the numbers of chaffinch and an increase in spadgers (house sparrows). When we started we never saw spadgers here

In the garden we get sparrow, chaffinch, blue tit, coal tit, great tit, great spotted woodpecker, dunnock, wren, nuthatch, robin, long tailed tit, greenfinch & siskins occasionally

Overflying in the summer - buzzard, swift, swallow, and very occasionally in October - osprey!

 

[Channel Hopper]

We have two rather large black chickens (Orpingtons ?)in our garden, courtesy of the neighbours and a lack of privet in the hedge.

As per Rais post, they eat better than I do, we feed them porridge oats, but they now peck on the conservatory door demanding the stuff before we wake up.

 

[mountainman]

Hi All
Yes already do feed the birds, peanuts,mixed seed,fat balls and kitchen scraps, like most of you we get the same type of birds plus a regular visit from a sparrow hawk, just had a couple of bullfinches on our prunus last week, they come each year about now and strip of all the buds, we get very few flowers/blossom.
Make sure they have water available also, tried BTO bird watch but it got to time consuming as we seemed to be getting the same species and numbers.

 

[2cvbloke]

We have two rather large black chickens (Orpingtons ?)in our garden, courtesy of the neighbours and a lack of privet in the hedge.

As per Rais post, they eat better than I do, we feed them porridge oats, but they now peck on the conservatory door demanding the stuff before we wake up.

You could make them disappear you know, the oven is a great hiding place...

 

[Channel Hopper]

They are far too big for that.

 

[rolfw]

Good to hear a few of us are into feeding the birds.

I tried the BTO birdwatch and like mountainman, couldn't commit the the time, I do of course do the annual RSPB count.

@ rai uno, don't suppose you've managed to get any photos of the Little Owls, if so, would be nice posted on my bird forum.

 

[guest]

@ rai uno, don't suppose you've managed to get any photos of the Little Owls, if so, would be nice posted on my bird forum.

I could try, in due course. We are in blizzard conditions at present ..........

They are very shy indeed and thirty or forty metres is the closest we can get. That means that our Digital Camera will see them as indistinct blobs! So I don't hold out much hope.

I gather Bill Oddie is short of work right now ........................ :-shh

 

[rolfw]

Ah,the weather is there already then. They are quite shy, I've got a 500mm lens and haven't been able to get close enough to one for a picture. Nice to have them local to you though.

 

[irart]

Great to know that there are so many "bird" people on this forum.

Mountainman, try feeding your bullfinches on sunflower seeds, and then they will leave your tree buds alone. They only eat those when there is nothing else available We have three (two cocks, one hen) that seem to be permanently attached to our seed feeder. We also get a Jay that visits and likes peanuts. To see such a large bird dangling from the feeder is quite comical.

My particular favourites are the long tailed tits. They always arrive mob handed - at least six of them, leave after about five minutes, and then don't appear again for an hour or two.

Our biggest problem is with grey squirrels - rats with fluffy tails. They have completely wrecked for plastic feeders, so I have to have all metal ones these days, which aren't cheap, but to survive their mauling.

 

[rolfw]

I have the same problem irart, had to change all of my feeders, as the Squirrels were taking over the garden, only get the odd one here and there now.

I then unfortunately lost a couple of the birds like the Bullfinches, as they liked to feed from an old Sky minidish suspended under one of my feeders, but didn't like the new caged ones.

View attachment 19857

Here's one of my cage feeders, the grid is too small for all but the small birds. . . . . . . . Well apart from greedy juvenile Starlings. Took them quite a while to get back out.

View attachment 19858

 

[Analoguesat]

We have problems with the tree rats wrecking the bird feeders too. Not just plastic ons - the gnaw through the steel mesh of the peanut feeder!

 

[satpro]

Just got back home no snow here yet but yesterday i put up a bird seed holder with seeds penuts and a bird house you will see it when i upload the photos of the pole i put in the ground for the dish it is right next to it

 

[2cvbloke]

We have problems with the tree rats wrecking the bird feeders too. Not just plastic ons - the gnaw through the steel mesh of the peanut feeder!

Set up traps to kill them (assuming they are the american grey) then eat the little b*ggers on a barbecue in the garden to show them you mean business...

 

[rolfw]

Here's my Robin scouting for breakfast this morning.

 

[satpro]

Nice photo rolf any one know how i upload photos to this forum i have tried but all it says is the photo is to big

 

[guest]

I had that same query a few days ago: Max. allowed size is about 450Kb, so download a lovely little application called Pixresizer and all will be well!

Have a look at this useful Sticky about Uploading