Category Archives: Bird Watching

Poppies and Partridges

Sorry it’s a blurred photo of the partridges, but they made off as soon as I stepped outside. After a season of being shot at they are a bit sensitive about people pointing things at them. They pottered across the yard, but were disappointed to find that we are now keeping the poultry food more secure – no more free feeds!

They are eating grit from the roadway to help with digestion. Because they don’t have teeth birds break their food down by using grit in a muscular stomach known as the gizzard. This grit eating behaviour is used in medicating red grouse.

As a result of that link I now know much more than I want to know about gizzards and their traditional culinary uses. Having only ever used them in making gravy I’m amazed at the variety of uses. I say “amazed” but maybe in the case of pickled turkey gizzards “appalled” may be a better word.

The grit used to grind (known as insoluble grit or flint grit when you feed it to poultry) is different from the grit fed to laying hens to help with egg shell production (known as soluble grit or oyster shell).

Yes, as I wrote that I too was wondering what sort of person knows these things.

And then there were the poppies. I’m trying to photograph poppies at the moment but wind and rain and poor light are all making it difficult.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Poppy and chamomile

Black, White and Orange

6 Replies

No, it’s not a post about post-Brexit sorting of foreigners, it’s a post about me trying to find an inexpensive bird food.

I was tempted to say “cheap” but it was just a bit simple, so I thought I would wait and see if a better chance for a pun presented itself.

It could be subtitled: “A Confession Regarding Lentils”

Several articles have told me that birds will eat uncooked lentils. I eat uncooked lentils, because I can’t help it when I’m cooking – I just like the crunch. They are reasonably priced and you can get them from the supermarket, which is more than you can say for nyger seed.

So I spent £15 on a bird feeder with three chambers. I could just have bought three cheap feeders for about £7, but I had to show off…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The first picture shows the feeder full, and I feel it looks quite good.

The second shot shows the feeder next day, with two thirds of the sunflower hearts gone, and a third of the black sunflower gone.

So, sunflower hearts are a very popular bird food – I think we knew that. And the black ones aren’t quite so good, but still popular. I think we knew that too. But birds don’t like uncooked lentils. I’m pretty sure that I could have guessed that too. It just seemed wrong, and with my birds, in June, nothing ate the lentils, even when they were the only choice. I left the feeder hanging with just the lentils in. Nobody ate them, they just ate peanuts and nyger.

So, cheap food doesn’t pay, don’t believe all you read in books and you don’t need flashy feeders.

I should have known it was too good to be true.

😉

Bird feeder blues

12 Replies

It’s bank Holiday Monday, and as there is nobody in today we are taking the opportunity to catch up.

Julia is planting the new vertical planters (also known as adapted pallets) and I am doing a few odd jobs, including fixing a broken bird feeder, answering emails and writing this.

I have the better of it, as the wind is playing havoc with the planting. The planned row of lettuces is looking particularly floppy after an hour of being battered by the wind. We will have to see how it goes.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Over the years I’ve accumulated a number of bird feeders of various designs, including a number of cheap ones that feature a plastic hanging loop. I suppose it’s obvious, when you think about it, that continued exposure to the elements would eventually cause the loop to deteriorate and break.

It’s a nuisance rather than a problem, but as luck would have it, I cannot find any wire or any binder twine in my drawers to make the repair. That is the trouble with being tidy.

Whilst writing this I’ve also been Googling “bird feeders”. I was immediately attracted to this site. I will include the link because it’s interesting, though I’m not sure how practical many of them are. The shoe feeder looks interesting, but I’m not sure that my neighbours “are sure to think that you are the most creative person ever”. They would probably think I’m an idiot who nails shoes to trees.

Meanwhile, the jackdaws have discovered the feeder with the suet pellets in it. Is there nothing that they can’t do?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s an example of how man interferes with nature. It isn’t such an obvious example as some, but it is a fact that before we brought the pigs to the allotment we didn’t have jackdaws round the centre. Though there were jackdaws about the village they didn’t interfere with our bird feeding and we were able to feed a variety of birds in feeders and on the floor. At the time we fed a lot of fat pellets, because we’d been given several buckets of them, and had no trouble with jackdaws.

Now, after drawing them to the area of the centre with pig food, they won’t leave the bird feeders alone. They are birds, but we don’t need so many large, disruptive birds at the feeder. it seems that anything with fat in it is like a magnet to the jackdaws and that as a result of trying to limit jackdaw activity we have fewer chaffinches, hardly any dunnocks and no wrens. There is very little for robins and blackbirds to eat either, as they like to feed off the floor.

It isn’t just the amount they eat, but that they scare other birds away. They even mobbed the woodpecker when it came for its second visit of the day, though it stood its ground and gave as good as it got.

I’m onto Plan D now, I think. All will be revealed after Open Farm Sunday. I am

Meanwhile, for a discussion on whether we should even be feeding birds, have a look at this.

Birds, birds, birds…

8 Replies

We washed the bird feeders this morning. It’s one of those jobs that I usually put off as I much prefer watching birds feed to washing grubby feeders. After trying to sterilise some with boiling water last year I’m also a little worried about melting them.

It’s clear from looking at them that several of the feeders have design faults that mean you can’t clean them properly. One now has damp seed trapped in its base, which must be worse than not cleaning it at all, and another quite clearly allows peanuts to fester in the base. They are both very cheap feeders so I can’t complain, but for £1.50 I’m not going to persist with them; I will just buy some that are easier to clean.

In around 1969, after reading The Bird Table Book by Tony Soper, I became very keen on feeding birds, and one of my milestones was the winter when greenfinches started to feed in quantity. From being exotic visitors (compared to the sparrows, chaffinches and starlings that formed the bulk of our garden birds) they rapidly became bullies, because there were just so many of them.

Times change, and after Trichomonas gallinae, swept through the greenfinch population (reducing it by over a third) they aren’t the force they once were. The parasite is thought to be spread by access to dirty feeding equipment, which is why I’m trying to keep ours clean.

Our bullies on the feeders are now jackdaws and goldfinches, and the greenfinches and house sparrows are now uncommon visitors.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Talking of jackdaws, they were on one of the feeders when we arrived this morning – using the support from the flat feeder pan as a perch to attack the peanuts. I have now made a number of changes, which include removing the flat pans and supports. It means that the robins and blackbirds won’t have anywhere to feed, apart from the floor, but I will think of something for them as soon as I can. I’ve also bought a new feeder to supply suet pellets, so they smaller birds are still getting a high energy diet.

Currently we have a couple of jackdaws stalking round and looking puzzled.

The squirrel-proof fat ball feeder at the back of the centre doesn’t stop the jackdaws but it does slow them down, so we will continue using that until we finish the remaining fat balls. The feeder in the hedge has been replaced with a seed feeder. We get tits and sparrows there on the fat balls, so they should be able to cope with the seeds.

That’s it, apart from a touch of hypocrisy. Shortly after restocking the feeders we had a great spotted woodpecker come to visit the feeding station. To be honest, I’m very pleased it did. They are colourful, and though they aren’t rare, we haven’t had one on the feeder before. The hypocrisy comes into play when you consider they raid nests (and beehives!). The beehives are still a sore point. They aren’t much different from a crow in that respect, but because they are colourful, I tend to forgive them.

As luck would have it, Julia had the new camera out in the field when I needed it, so I had to use the old one to photograph the woodpecker. Isn’t that always the way?

More kites and a memorial

4 Replies

The day started well, with blue skies, a list of jobs and packet of croissants. The croissants were soon gone, accompanied by by some excellent three fruit marmalade I found lurking in the back of a cupboard. After a spot of washing up and a trip to the hobby shop for Julia to buy glass paint. At that point the sky began to cloud over. It’s tempting to invoke the pathetic fallacy there, but I was actually quite happy sitting in the car with a notebook, so in metaphysical terms there was no threat of rain in my life.

In reality the rain started just after lunch as I set off for Peterborough. This put a bit of a crimp in my photographic plans for the day. By the time I’d been beaten at Snakes and Ladders and Dominoes and had a cup of tea there still didn’t seem much hope of sunlight so I abandoned my plans and headed home.

Fortunately I didn’t quite go directly home and managed to get a flying kite picture. I almost got a picture of a pair of flying kites but the first pair flew away as I got out of the car and the second pair turned out as a flying kite and a blur.

Finally, as I was in the area, I nipped up the road to the village of Kings Cliffe – one time site of King John’s hunting lodge and, in later years, the last hanger-based concert of Glenn Miller. I found the air base memorial but not the Glenn Miller memorial (one internet forum says it was destroyed by vandals a few years ago). As vandals also broke the air base memorial a few years ago, and it is currently defaced by inane scrawl, it seems that there isn’t much to do in Kings Cliffe at night.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Man v Jackdaw

13 Replies

They found the fat balls I hung in the hedge so it’s time for the next phase.

Wilkos have these feeders in for £7, which is the cheapest I’ve been able to find. You get what you pay for but I can’t see that Jackdaws are strong enough to bend the bars so cheap should be good enough.

I’m going to try one and if it works I will buy more.The main worry isn’t if it works but if it acts like a sail in the wind as it gets quite windy out here and it’s quite common to find the feeder pole at an angle of 30 degrees after high winds.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Meanwhile, I suppose I ought to consider alternative foods (as in the peanuts) and whether of not I have the right to feed finches and starve Jackdaws. For the moment though, as Monday morning is not prime time for debating questions of ethics, I will confine myself to trying to outwit them.

It may not be easy.

Nature Notes

6 Replies

I say nature notes, but it’s mainly birds and butterflies. I’m trying to learn more about plants and insects but I don’t learn things as quickly as I used to.

We had two Swallows fly by last Thursday and another one yesterday. Working on the basis that one Swallow doesn’t make a summer it looks like we are well on the way. We also saw two House Martins at the weekend.

We have seen more Brimstones in the last week than we saw in the whole of last year. Well, to be accurate, I suppose it is more accurate to say we have had more Brimstone sightings – it could well just be one very active butterfly. The only time I spotted one land…yes, you guessed it…no camera.

The struggle with Jackdaws continues. They have started on the one at the back of the centre now, though it is quite obvious so this isn’t a surprise. The one concealed in the hedge has attracted some good birds, but the Jackdaws have spotted that one too. They don’t bother with it too much, so it might be OK. On the main feeder I’ve replaced the fat balls with peanuts so fat ball consumption is down and the smaller birds are able to eat without disturbance. I’m considering ordering some squirrel-proof fat ball feeders as the next step.

It’s quite strange at the moment. We have a pair of Greenfinches coming to one feeder, and a pair of House Sparrows on another. They used to be so common I wouldn’t have bothered mentioning them, but they have both suffered massive declines since those days and it’s good to think we have a few around.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Meanwhile, we have regular Buzzards over the farm and plenty of Red Kites nearby, as I may have mentioned. In the days of my youth (as I say more and more often these days) I can remember when we had to travel to Wales, Cornwall or the Lake District to see Buzzards, and when there were only 20 pairs of Red Kites in the UK (all in Wales).

The strangest sighting of the week has been a Heron that circled overhead for about ten minutes like a massive bird of prey. I managed to get a few distant shots but as it came closer and gave me a good view my batteries failed and the camera locked. I was not impressed. It perched in a tree for a while (hidden by foliage) before starting to circle and making a raucous cry. I don’t know what it was all about, as we don’t have any significant water about. Later that day it came back for a couple more circuits. It may be some sort of breeding behaviour but who can tell?

Birds can be very strange.

15 Replies

It was an interesting day on Saturday. Breakfast at Sainsbury’s, which is not quite as glamorous as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, dropped Julia off at work, had a couple of hours on the farm (including solving the fat ball/jackdaw conundrum) and a trip to see my father in Peterborough.

It was all going so well until I went for a cup of tea with my sister, and the weather took a sudden turn for the worse. It was strange, we went into the services on the A1 on a moderate spring day, had tea and scones and then emerged in mid-winter. All in all it was a bit of a Narnia moment.

As you can see in the pictures, there was a fair amount of wintry stuff on the floor, a sort of cross between snow and hail. If I was an Eskimo I’m sure I would know the right word for this sort of snow, but unfortunately I’m not, and I don’t.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

There are two possibilities from here, home up the A1 or home via the Northamptonshire countryside. I like Northamptonshire, and I also like the Red Kites you often see along the road between Peterborough and Corby.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

As you can see, the weather got better.

The final picture shows a blob of dirt (I was using my old camera) and a Red Kite wheeling just above the tree.

Red Kite over oak tree

The sun is shining…

Plovers, soup and pruning

11 Replies

It’s been quite a good day. There was a light coating of frozen snow in Nottingham this morning, following on from several short, sporadic falls of snow interspersed with rain. However, as we left the city behind, things seemed to warm up and there was no evidence of snow as we drove to the farm. I would have expected it to be the other way round as you always expect towns to be warmer, but I wasn’t complaining.

We saw lapwings by the roadside this morning, now returned from wherever they go in winter. I know they go to Ireland from the north of England the ones from the south go to France and Iberia. I’m not sure where ours go from the Midlands, though they do seem to come back at this time of the year. There are actually large flocks of plovers in the pits at Netherfield, so they may only nip down the road. You can never tell.

The group did the measurements for the Woodland Trust this morning and I did some of the pruning on the apple trees in the agroforestry project. I was originally booked to do it all, but they have since decided that it was cheaper to get me to teach the farm apprentice to do it. For definitions of cheapskate, click this link.

When the group was doing the trees they heard, and saw, a pair of buzzards circling. I wasn’t close enough to hear them, but actually saw three wheeling in the sky above a plantation on the property next door.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

To warm everyone up at lunchtime we used the new soup-maker Julia bought me for Christmas. I’m always suspicious of gadgetry and it’s take me a while to get it out of the box. To be fair, I threw in a half-bag of slightly mouldy carrots, two onions, some potatoes and a stick cube (chopped small) with four cups of water and produced a half-reasonable smooth vegetable soup. Considering the ingredients I actually used I think that was a good result.

It’s also easier to wash up afterwards as I always seem to get soup on the wall when using my normal hand blender method.

I’m now converted.

If only they did one with an automated veg chopper…

quercuscommunity

Life after the Care Farm

Category Archives: Bird Watching

Poppies and Partridges

Black, White and Orange

Bird feeder blues

Birds, birds, birds…

More kites and a memorial

Man v Jackdaw

Nature Notes

The sun is shining…

Plovers, soup and pruning