Originally posted by agingjb
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What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?
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Originally posted by cloughie View PostBusy nesting and keeping the magpies away ... and there are more insects around!
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Originally posted by Bryn View PostA few days ago I hung a fat-ball feeder in a little secluded clearing in the Rhododendrons in a local woodland I relax in occasionally (the one I recently observed potential nest site surveying behaviour by a red kite). Three days later just a small remnant of one of the three fat-balls I filled the fat-ball feeder with remained. I suppose grey squirrels might have been responsible for the swift consumption. I might leave a Zoom Q2n 'looking at it' to record activity for a few hours.
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Prolonged cooler temperatures in Spring tend to discourage breeding activity (a few hardy Blackbirds will territorialise and may begin, but if colder weather follows warmer as this year, especially after the eggs are laid, its bad news...); at the same time, there is a greater abundance of natural food such as buds and seedheads and to some extent insects. (I've seen Parakeets, Tits and Goldfinches up high recently, munching on Birch and Chestnut buds).
So birds need less of our dispenser offerings just now.
But I always notice this falling off in feeder visits at this time of year, only picking up once the eggs are laid (to feed eggsitters) and when young are hatched. (I see Jackdaws are back in one of the chimneys above my bedroom; what a rumble-de-thumps they make nest-building in the early mornings!)
If you have resident Finches or Tits, they will be drawn to the easiest-to-eat or richest varieties: sunflower hearts or suet pellets (the pellets are still popular here now, for Tits, Chaffinches, Dunnocks and Robins). Try those if your garden seems barren of birdlife.
The problem with larger suet blocks or balls is how accessible they are, with wide-spaced mesh in the feeders, to Squirrels and larger birds. Jackdaws and Magpies can demolish them in a single morning, which may be Bryn's problem. I have seen Rats on them, but very rarely.
Here, once the Jackdaws are feeding young, I have to replace the blocks every day or leave off for a while, dishing out more seed and bread to provide for them and the larger ground feeders.Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 12-04-21, 18:23.
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Yes, saw that. I wonder how many programmes Chris Packham makes? He must Pack 'em in.
On the subject of fat balls, they seem very popular in our garden and several bird species which you'd not expect to nibble them have worked out how to do it, according to Mrs A. Also (she says) it is birds that are getting them, not rodents.
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Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
On the subject of fat balls, they seem very popular in our garden and several bird species which you'd not expect to nibble them have worked out how to do it, according to Mrs A. Also (she says) it is birds that are getting them, not rodents.
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Originally posted by HighlandDougie View PostSuet + mealworms (which I've contemplated coating in breadcrumbs like arancini and deep-frying as a "bonne bouche" with drinks - no, not seriously) - house and tree sparrows, long-tailed tits (which see off bigger birds if need be), chaffinches, very greedy blackbirds, even greedier woodpeckers - I can't keep up. But, as they are well off the ground and not dangling from a big branch, rodent-free. Kilos of the things so far since the autumn.
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Originally posted by cloughie View PostA blackbird divebombed a magpie here a couple of days ago.
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Originally posted by johncorrigan View Post... male pheasants / ... / They might look handsome, but at this time of the year they really are the dopiest birds out there.
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