In addition to the normal bird feeders containing fat balls, bird seed, Niger seed and peanuts what else do you feed in these extremely cold conditions.
It never ceases to amaze me how they manage to survive the nights.
I find myself preparing a couple of dishes of breakfast for them to feed at daybreak each day.
This morning each dish had in it two mince pies, one sausage roll, a weetabix, a slice of bread broken up, some Alpen, a half a tin of cat food and some sultanas.
I mix this up with a little warm water and they love it.
The pond still has a waterfall and two pump outlets that are keeping a small space clear of ice and they bathe in the waterfall, but struggle keeping their footing.
Pat
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They're falling about in the snow as we speak. I feed seed and peanuts only, but with peanuts at £23.00 a sack now it is beginning to hurt. Apparently there are lots of things that they shouldn't have (even if they like them). Of course it also makes them very reliant on us too. I won't stop though even at £23.00 a sack although in the summer I feed less. The Woodpeckers are very busy here which we rarely see in the Winter. I believe that Woodpeckers are partial to cheese although when I tried them with Cheddar it didn't go. Perhaps I'll try Stilton (in Port) next weekend.
Best regards........Martin.
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What birds ?
If I am lucky I see one blackbird in the garden. I hear a robin but rarely see him now.
My bird feeders are ignored except on the odd time the nigers are visited.
This has been getting steadily worseespecially over the last year or so.
In the 30 years I have lived here it has all been downhill.
It is so bad my back up supplies will shortly be binned.
I have no idea why my garden is boycotted.
Wood pidgeons still come but the corvids and parakeets are still around.
It is so sad to see the number of birds decline over the years.
Just to rub it in my son has bought me a birdbox cam.
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>> Wood pidgeons still come but the corvids and parakeets are still around.
Corvids could well be your problem H, they will take every egg they can from the district and those they miss will be taken once hatched from the nest...our gardens were almost devoid of birds except for Magpies when we moved in...dealing with them hes restored things.
Is there much natural cover where you are.
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>> Is there much natural cover where you are.
>>
There is plenty of woodland around the area.
Corvids may well be the problem. We certainly see magpies in the garden.
I have a bird box that has been used several years by blue tits and they also nest in the roof.
I cut off a dead vertical branch of our tree and put a cap on it thus making a nest site for great tits.
My bird box cam I had as a present is not going to give great results :-(
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Don't do the concoction that Pat does but in addition to her usual list, mixed fruit, dried mealworms.
I get premium seed and niger seed from 'garden4less' in big bags, it works out much more reasonable, the premium seed contains a lot more of the small seeds and 25kg of seed 12.5kg of niger usually last the year...i stop feeding when the fledglings are ready to leave to encourage them to find their own patch and restart feeding around October to fatten the residents up for winter.
I get seed peanuts too and as well as having them whole in the appropriate feeders i chop them up in the food blender and put a handful every day on the feed table together with a variety of everything else.
Stream at the bottom of the garden so fresh water isn't a problem.
Martins right in that they probably do rely on us but look around and you'll find that we that look after them are in quite a small minority and with the vastly unnaturally increased numbers of predators they have if we didn't do our bit we could well lose them.
If you look at some housing estates with their regimented block paved land devoid of trees, hedges and shrubs the only birds you see are magpies and crows.
Are we too kind and doing wrong, i don't think we are, we have to try and make up for the changes we have caused.
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GB, it must be your lorry I see swerving onto the hard shoulder to mow down the crows and magpies snacking on the road kill!
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>> GB, it must be your lorry I see swerving onto the hard shoulder
I don't swerve for them but neither do i attempt to miss them.
Empty transporter was the best for catching Maggies out, they may be cunning and clever and fly off just at the right moment... but the safety rail 3,5 ft over the bodywork and full length of the sides they couldn't see very well and that bagged a few..;)
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Martin
If you are only paying £23 a sack...assuming 25Kg, then that is a bargain.
After 20+ years in the pet trade, I still work part time, and the 2010 peanut crop has failed in many countries. We buy 60 x 25kg every two weeks to sell loose (currently 3kg @ £4.55) and pay either COD or pro forma, paying between £22.50 and £25 per sack.
Sunflower hearts are very popular, as is Niger seed, Harrisons Energy No Mess & Robin Blends.
Feeders with a 'cage' around them are best for the smaller birds..I am plagued by crows etc and my farming friends are only too happy to come and shoot the magpies.
Last edited by: legacylad on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 23:15
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Magpies should be exterminated.
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We don't feed them anything now after we found that the local rat population was eating the food.
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Keep up the good work Pat.
SWMBO and I are both members of RSPB.
Our garden is surrounded by high hedges and birch trees to encourage birds and SWMBO is regularly feeding them.
We have one peanut feeder and one seed feeder which SWMBO keeps topped up for the sparrows and blue tits , average life of a fill of seed is less than a day. A robin lives at the far end of the garden but he seems to prefer worms. A niger seed feeder we put out has always been ignored for some reason but we persist in the hope they will come to accept it.
The garden is also home to three very territorial blackbirds and a couple of thrushes who find the worms in the lawn and fight over the currants that we put out on the patio every morning .One blackbird in particular has even been known to venture into our kichen following a trail of currants. They are squabbling at the patio door as soon as I appear in the morning.
The birch trees are home to half a dozen woodpigeons who strut around under the seed feeder to collect the seeds scattered by the sparrows and we have also seen woodpeckers and an ( unwelcome) sparrowhawk this year who finished off one of the pigeons.
I always leave a bowl of warm water out for them as well when the bird bath gets frozen , it was solid with a foot of snow on it last week ....
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Byrds luv apples it seems,
I cut up 4 of my orgasmic NZ jobbies t'other day and them dark coloured birds (BB or Thrush) luvs em!
I likes dark coloured byrds :)
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We are on the edge of town with fields behind us and then woods.So we have lots of birds.. which we feed rarely in summer.
In winter:
we leave our bruised/grotty cooking apples on a raised wall in the garden.
Buy a 25kg bag of mixed bird seed from our local mill/agricultural seed merchant (£10) andd supplement with niger seed.
Heaped on bird table and on grass and at side where there is shelter. De-snowed whenever it falls.
Blackbirds, great/blue/long tailed tits, robins, sparrows, dunnocks, the odd thrush, pheasants , collared doves, wood pigeons ,starlings come down with the odd jackdaw and coccasional bird of prey - which likes to eat pigeons on our front lawn.
Apart from that, nuthatches on trees, woodpeckers to next door's feeders and the odd field fayre..
Last edited by: madf on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 10:52
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Yup, that's about what we get. Nothing new going out, just extra portions, making sure it's all gone by dusk. We've seen a Small Owl once or twice in the last few days too.
John
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Agree totally, we have the same problem in South Norfolk / Norwich. But if you live in a rural area thats what you get.
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I had a problem with rats taking the feed outside the caravan.
Solution was to mount the feeder on a pole made of narrow gauge steel rod with a long overhang.
Rats are good climbers, but the rod's not much thicker than a biro and they can't grip it.
I also rigged up a tray, made of an old plastic plate, on the base of the feeder which prevents spillages.
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I tend to make a lot of garden compost that is store in plastic sacks. Compost contains a lot of brandling worms. Have been emptying the odd sack on a bare bit of garden which has proved very popular with ground feeding birds like robins and blackbirds.
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Two giant seed feeders, six niger seed feeders, and a panoply of the fat balls, cocoa nut shells, fruit etc, and the garden is swarming with birds. We often have a dozen or more goldfinches.
We have to replenish that lot at least once a week, but there is something relaxing about just watching them for a half an hour on a Sunday afternoon when you've just argued about the hoovering again.
You think a pigeon is a big bird until you get the jackdaws in. They virtually take the tree with them.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 10:33
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Jackdaws are smaller than Wood Pigeons surely?
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>> Jackdaws are smaller than Wood Pigeons surely?
Now I've looked it up, you're right, so I can only assume that my I-Spy book of bird watching has misled me. They're not Jackdaws, they're Pterodactyls.
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...they're Pterodactyls...
Ha-ha.
Probably crows or ravens.
And they will be a fair size with all that lovely food you put out.
Last edited by: Iffy on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 10:50
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A raven won't be seen in the garden.
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Thanks for clearing that up::)
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>>
>> We have to replenish that lot at least once a week, but there is something
>> relaxing about just watching them for a half an hour on a Sunday afternoon when
>> you've just argued about the hoovering again.
>>
Same here, I spend a lot of time at the moment watching the antics of the horde* of goldfinches that feast on our sunflower hearts, along with a few blue tits, great tits, coal tits, greenfinches and now and again a nuthatch. I'm refilling the feeders every 3 days at the moment; we have supports like a shepherd's crook, sounds pretty much like iffy's. I haven't seen the return of the siskin that someone here kindly identified a while back. :-/
*If there isn't an official collective noun for goldfinches I'd like to submit 'glitter of goldfinches'.
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Just put out some raisins as well. Have to confess I didn't know that was the right thing to do. Currently (sic) a male Blackbird is vigorously keeping a young Thrush at bay, quite a nasty beast he is too.
M
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My partner lives in urban Bracknell and has a small garden. She has a metal stand with hangers for 2 feeders, one is peanuts and the other is mixed seed. The pole is greased with Castrol LM to deter the greedy squirels. The whole set up is almost overhung by a huge holly tree in which the birds hide and fly down to the food. We see blue and coal tits, robins chaffinches, nuthatches and the occasional wood pecker. What I find odd is that the birds eat all the summer but don't seem to be that bothered in this bad weather. They seem to prefer seeds to nuts. She has tried the fatballs and they don't seem popular. She has birds in her nesting box every year recently and the birds seem quite pleased with the set up, overall.
Like the sound of raisins - are they approved for birds or are there bad side effects? Like death!
Last edited by: Perky Penguin (p) on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 12:19
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>> Like the sound of raisins - are they approved for birds or are there bad
>> side effects? Like death!
RSPB suggest they are ok, and even have some products with them in, so that must the state of, um, currant thinking, as it were.
See
www.bbc.co.uk/cambridgeshire/planet_cambs/bird_guide.shtml
for example.
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There's a large white bird flying about in the woodland here, perhaps lost. Someone who has had a closer look at it than me says it's an egret.
Florida used to be full of white egrets. They were all killed for their crest feathers to feed the New York fashion industry in the early twentieth century.
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I saw a little egret whilst out for a walk on Saturday. They're not a commonly spotted bird but sightings are increasing. They're like a smaller heron, white with bright yellow feet.
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If it looks like a heron, only white, that's an egret; here's one I photographed earlier:-
tinypic.com/view.php?pic=b6wtoz&s=5&hid=14&tag=egret
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>> Nice picture spamcan.
>>
Thanks! Taken with my 'toy' compact which made the dark background look a bit odd, but the egret came out nicely.
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I buy 20kg bags of wild bird seed for £12.99 or £13.99 (depending on outlet) at Range or Pets 'r Us.
Other varieties are at similar or slightly more prices.
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I'm not sure things like pastry are a good idea. Salted food is supposed to be bad for them. I'd check with the RSPB site to make sure. Seeds and fat balls are good. Dried fruit should be fine since they eat fruit anyway. Some garden centres sell seeds in 25Kg bags at bargain prices. Homebase et al charge a fortune for small amounts. Mind you careful where you store the seeds. After mum died, I found the 25Kg bag of sunflower seeds I had given her (for the birds of course) and there was nothing left but husks. Somehow a very greedy mouse, or mice, had got in to the bag.
Last edited by: Leif on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 14:07
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25KG! That'll be some seriously fat/happy mice!
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We used to keep the seed in the shed in the normal poly bags but after some mouse attacks on the packs in the shed we now keep it in old plastic sweet jars. A trap loaded with apple soon put paid to the culprit .....
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Chocolate in a mouse trap rarely fails.
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Other top mouse baits are peanut butter on a cube of bread and chocolate. Snap MD - you were 1 minute ahead!
Last edited by: Perky Penguin (p) on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 15:03
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Black sunflower seed is favourite with the smaller birds.
John
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>> Black sunflower seed is favourite with the smaller birds.
>> John
Yes, they love them. The mixed seeds are not so appealing although cheaper. The big problem I have sometimes had is with pigeons. The big fat greedy bullies hog the table and frighten away the nicer birds. It's also best to out the feeder near trees which provide cover from predators.
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>> Black sunflower seed is favourite with the smaller birds.
>> John
>>
You don't get an accumulation of husks on the ground if you buy sunflower hearts.
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True but they are a lot more expensive. Fortunately our feeders are over open soil so the debris doesn't matter. Every few months I gather it up and put it in the compost bin. It's always full of worms. We get a lot of debris too as we also buy big sacks, 15 - 25kg from the local feed mill.
John
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At the livery yard where SWMBO keeps her nag, we have a resident pheasant which has been fed for the last three years. He is a truly fine specimen, and will eat seed from your hand. Despite local shoots, he's managed to keep his head down - maybe with all the feeding he can't actually get airborne!
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We get a lot of pheasants and they vary from year to year. This year they're all off the moment they see you. Other years you get trampled in the rush.
John
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Our local badgers - a huge sett approx 1/2 mile away - visit the garden approx once a week and eat any seeds left out..
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Blimey, some of these birds in your gardens eat better than I do! Seems like they want for nothing, apart from maybe a few beds, a heated bird house and a telly.
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Did I mention we have installed a new facility for visiting birds?: a heating element in the lintel of the front window which keeps it snow and frost free. The locals perch on it, peer through the window and watch David Attenborough programmes.. They are not too keen on cooking programs: especially those that start with "take one bird, remove feathers and entrials, place in oven and cook for two hours or until juices run clear"
Last edited by: madf on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 18:18
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>> Blimey, some of these birds in your gardens eat better than I do!
And why should our avian cousins be excluded from the national orgy of obesity, the pride of modern Britain and our sole remaining distinction?
Really corax, for a deplorably beakist, featherist post yours takes a bit of beating.
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>> And why should our avian cousins be excluded from the national orgy of obesity, the
>> pride of modern Britain and our sole remaining distinction?
No reason at all, except that I wouldn't want to see the same afflictions suffered by our feathered friends as endured by us. I may well have to ring the RSPB and complain of extreme cruelty caused by human induced forced overindulgance.
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and trash the garden :-(
John
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Yes - I remember seeing a picture of a bowling green quality lawn in front of a country house which looked like a rugger pitch after a rough match and that had been done by badgers. You must be lucky madf!
Last edited by: Perky Penguin (p) on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 18:33
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PP
I suspect they start first with the local cemetery :-(
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Yup I have been feeding the birds at home, the bird table is groaning with food.
I mean, have you seen the price of Turkeys and cat food this year? I am retired you know.
I have a mean home grown recipe of the Aldi three bird roast,
Pass the net someone
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 19:33
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I hope the Zero variation of Aldi works well for you. I was browsing round the Waitrose website and they had a 3 Bird Roast for £120! Gasp! I then read that it was for 12 to 14 people but that is an expensive main course. We are only 4 for lunch so we are having a turkey crown and the trimmings.
Is your going to include home caught pigeon Zero?
Last edited by: Perky Penguin (p) on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 20:40
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Yup. I mowed down a ripe Lincolnshire pheasant as well, left it hanging on the radiator grill
a: as a Mad max type of warning to other drivers that I take no prisoners.
b: its colder there than my freezer.
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For the first year in living memory we shall be Turkey free. Hurrah!!
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>> we shall be Turkey free. Hurrah!!
Penguin?
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We've got the mother-in-law for Christmas.
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>>We've got the mother-in-law for Christmas.<< - think i`d even prefer Turkey!
However on the subject of feeding birds, I don`t make any special arrangements, it is supprising the variety of birds that frequent the chicken hopper (which holds mixed grain with cod-liver oil), even birds which are not normally "seed-eaters" get stuck in. A 20kg sack (£7.95) usually lasts the "girls" 8-9 days, now its going in 5, so the "likkle dickies" sure aint starvin here!
As for feeding stuff like "fat-balls"and "pastries" think of thier arteries! - you can kill with kindness too!
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Penguins aren't good eating - they are a bit like Mafia gangsters - Tough and Greasy. BTW, if fat balls etc are bad for birds would nature not tell them not to eat them? I am sure birds have blood but do they even have cholesterol?
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I've been a little bemused by the posts saying what might or might not be good for the birds.
I liken the situation to a starving man in a desert coming across a McD's and refusing to eat the triple Big Mac because of the cholesterol content.
Whatever next, do we needa thought Police for birds?
Or the RSPB equivalent to Health & Safety rules...no roosting on chimneys because passive smoking is bad for those tiny lungs.
Do birds really not have the ability in the wild to differentiate from what might cause indigestion and what might kill them?
When times are hard, food is food and any alternative is better to starving to death.
Now, I'm off to crumble up another mince pie for when dawn breaks:)
Pat
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...Now, I'm off to crumble up another mince pie for when dawn breaks:)...
Pat,
I think you should put out the food label as well, then the birds could make an informed choice. :)
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We trust it's an M&S mince pie.. only the best is fit for our feathered friends - who leave carp on my car and house windows.
Bring back more peregrines, says I...
Last edited by: madf on Tue 21 Dec 10 at 10:01
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Just in a waiting room leafing thru a bird mag and grated cheese was recommended for for birds owing to the high fat content ie good for them in this cold. Also fatty pastry crumbs from mince pies, as other have said; also mentioned was a supply of clean and unfrozen water.
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There are good fats and bad fats, according to the RSPB.
Lard, suet, fat in cakes and pastry is good.
Bad is fats from meat joints, partly because it's not solid and can clog wings.
"Fat from cooking is bad for birds. The problem with cooked fat from roasting tins and dishes is that the meat juices have blended with the fat and when allowed to set, this consistency makes it prone to smearing, not good for birds' feathers.
"It is a breeding ground for bacteria, so potentially bad for birds' health."
www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/feeding/whatfood/index.aspx
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>> Just in a waiting room leafing thru a bird mag!!
Oh! yeah! Which one??
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You donating Sperm again PP?
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That was very funny...!
Last edited by: Pugugly on Tue 21 Dec 10 at 20:42
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Da Pequin ain't so perky now!
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You smutty lot! It is publshed by RSPB and was called "Best of Coal Tits" ISTR! And I was NOT in the waiting room of a fertility clinic and I am not overdrawn at the sp*rm bank either.
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But you do admit to reading a book bout tits?
Pat
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Well I started off by looking the pictures but then I found the text was so interesting that I finished up reading it and finding out about the winter needs of our feathered friends! Enjoy your Xmas and New Year people. I am off until 3rd January 2011.
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An early bird too I see. Happy Xmas.
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Just for spamcans info the official collective noun for goldfinches is a 'charm'......
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...is a 'charm'...
Couldn't apply that to a group of forum members.
Perhaps a 'bicker'?
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Why hasn't someone said "tits like coconuts" yet?
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>> Why hasn't someone said "tits like coconuts" yet?
>>
Because -unlike others - we have been brought up properly and have never seen tits like cocnuts..
Like watermelons? Yes..
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>>and have never seen tits like cocnuts.<<
Right! thats you crossed off my list then! - but somebody slept with my ex!!
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Feeding Birds - MD
