Tag Archives: feeding birds

Saturday morning and some time to spare

6 Replies

A blue tit is squeaking from somewhere near our neighbour’s roof. I  have seen or heard it several times and I have wondered if it might be nesting. There is a gap under the tiles and they have nested there before, though it seems a bit late in the season to be looking at a new site. According to naturalists on TV they have had a bad season this year, the cold spring preventing the flush of caterpillars that usually coincides with the hatching of their young. No food meant a poor success rate.  We tend not to feed the birds these days because it attracts squirrels, magpies and rats. None of them are particularly welcome. Several of the neighbours over-feed, and some even put food out for foxes. I’ve told them several times that this causes rats, but they ignore me. One even told me that it was my unkempt nature plot that caused the rat problem. Not true. Rats need to eat, and there is nothing for them here. Gardens that leave out food scraps and hard boiled eggs are the cause of the rat problem, and gardens with decking. The stories I could tell you about decking . . .

I have actually sat in a neighbour’s garden and watched rats, in daylight, emerge from under their shed and climb the bird table to feed. The neighbour treated it as if it were a nature documentary. It’s not the fault of the rats, it’s the fault of humans who don’t have the sense they were born with.

After a lifetime killing rats on farms, and knowing a man who caught Weil’s disease whilst fishing, I don’t take rats lightly. There’s something about a rat that riggers a murderous impulse in me. I have actually seen people playing with pet rats in public, and have felt myself wanting to go over and  kill it. Fancy rats, despite their colours and cute faces are just the same as the normal disease-ridden bird killing garden rat – they were originally bred from colour variations that Victorian ratcatchers found in sewers. Bear that in mind next time you see one.

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
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
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
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.