Birds in my garden

[Bevvied]

Flying rats.

yeah.
last summer, i was sat outside, early evening having a pint with the radio on, nipped into the house for a wee, came back out and two of em were stood on a tiny table eating my pistachios. I'm used to them using me as target practice for their divebombingcrapping but that was taking the biscuit. or nuts.

 

[MyQul]

yeah.
last summer, i was sat outside, early evening having a pint with the radio on, nipped into the house for a wee, came back out and two of em were stood on a tiny table eating my pistachios. I'm used to them using me as target practice for their divebombingcrapping but that was taking the biscuit. or nuts.

Your just lucky they weren't drinking your pint as well

 

[foxy]

Foxy...tell us about your willy willy...

 

[Clint]

Ah....I seen 2 in the UK...one over water and one over a dry stubble field...

 

[foxy]

Yes and they can get quite powerful, I had a big willy willy come past a portacabin I was in, stillage of full size argon bottles outside gave them a good shaking.
But the birds love a big willy willy.

 

[Victor Churchill]

Constant battle of man vs. squirrel at our bird feeder. You can see one watching at upper right of pic. I almost don't begrudge the b*gger the seed but when he's on the feeder the birds are scared away. The mesh on the sunflower seed feeder is so small he can't get anything from it but he still has a go at chewing through the metal.
So far we have tried:

• Move feeders from location 1 close to hedge (left of pic) to location 2 closer to house (right of pic). Took about a day before they got the nerve to come closer.
• Add inverted plant-pot at joint in pole to stop them climbing. Result: they just do a Mission Impossible backbend to get from pole to outside of pot and up & over.
• Lithium grease on the pole - works for a day or two then loses its slip. Meanwhile the b*ggers go to the neighbouring holly tree (on left of pic) and do a flying leap from there.
• Saw off the branch of the holly tree they use as a launch pad. Result: they leap from lower down.
• Suspend netting from holly tree to stop them leaping. Result: they go higher/lower. Also a t*t got caught a couple of times and I had to free it so I cinched the netting in to the trunk of the tree.
• Mix chilli pwder with the seeds/nuts - doesn't seem to do a lot, he still has a go and I worry about putting off or even harming the birds.
• Cover the open seed-tray with a hacked-off old squirrel-proofing surround screen held on with wire. This stops the squirrel and pig-eons from geting at the open tray.

Anyway, when Mr Squit is not around, we see : t*ts (blue, great, coal, longtail I think?), house sparrow, sometimes a woodpecker with a red flash, something that I think is a nuthatch, finches of some sort. On the ground we get blackbirds, thrushes sometimes. And of course pigeons.

Of course all of them have gone camera shy and not coming out for photos now :-)

Pleased and surprised to see that the robin comes and eats from the flat seed tray. Previously when we only had suspended feeders the robin would not take from them but just wait on the ground and pick up what other birds scattered.

 

[Cwrw666]

Most interesting birds we've had in our garden -

Ravens
Red Kites
Hoopoe
Greater spotted woodpecker
Cuckoos

Plus all the usual suspects of course.

 

[terrym]

Neighbour has bluetits nesting in a box, and wood pigeons in a Leylandii. He can't dislodge the pigeons for fear of disturbing the bluetits. Nesting pigeons don't last very long in my garden
I have nesting robins again in a box I have in some ivy off the garage wall. I think they fledged last year but previously a cat managed to destroy the nest, ate part of the female and killed the babies. It was really sad to see the male bird flying around for a few hours trying to work out what had happened.
And currently a blackbird is scavenging worms from the back lawn. I know its the same bird because it has a white mark on one wing. The number of worms it has recovered it staggering.

 

[Alex.mc]

South London Croydon garden. We are lucky and have resident Robins, that will take from your hand if they feel brave. A Wren family in ivy at the bottom. Regular Green Woodpeckers. Ravens. Jackdaws. Crows. Jays. Blackbirds. Dunnock. Blue Tits. Coal Tits. Woodpigeon. Feral Pigeon. Racing pigeon(Yep, several). Thrush. Ring necked Parakeets. Doves. Magpies. Goldfinch. Starling. Long tailed Tit. Starlings. And regular overflights by Heron.

 

[Banbeer]

Add inverted plant-pot at joint in pole to stop them climbing

We had the same problem so I ordered one of those domes that goes on the pole had it in about the same position as yours, squirrel soon found it could jump from the stone birdbath (inset into the ground) onto the dome and then up to the goodies. I then decided to move the dome higher up to the very bottom of the seed tray and nuts etc and this has worked for over a year now. good luck

 

[terrym]

South London Croydon garden. We are lucky and have resident Robins, that will take from your hand if they feel brave. A Wren family in ivy at the bottom. Regular Green Woodpeckers. Ravens. Jackdaws. Crows. Jays. Blackbirds. Dunnock. Blue t**s. Coal t**s. Woodpigeon. Feral Pigeon. Racing pigeon(Yep, several). Thrush. Ring necked Parakeets. Doves. Magpies. Goldfinch. Starling. Long tailed Tit. Starlings. And regular overflights by Heron.

Haven't seen a Thrush in years. They used to be a common bird even in the garden

 

[peebee]

Yes and they can get quite powerful, I had a big willy willy come past a portacabin I was in, stillage of full size argon bottles outside gave them a good shaking.
But the birds love a big willy willy.

Willy willy, or "dust devils" to us UK residents. In my younger days they used to terrify me, and with good reason: I used to hang-glide, competitively, and these things would tear through launch sites (in S. France and Spain) trashing hang-gliders on route. One picked me off the ground 20-30 feet (I was clipped into the glider waiting to launch) before dumping me back on the ground a few seconds later. Once in the air they could be useful for marking thermals when getting a bit low (air rushing in to replace the lifting off thermal will trigger dust devils).

Those where the days. I'm not allowed to drive a car now, never mind climb into an aeroplane (I used to fly anything with wings).

So yeah, "birds love a big willy willy". (Joke).

 

[peebee]

Constant battle of man vs. squirrel at our bird feeder. ...

Yeap, I can sympathise with that.

...
Lithium grease on the pole - works for a day or two then loses its slip. ...

This one always annoys me 'cos I tried Vaseline for a while: Squirrels often get described as "intelligent". But they are not intelligent, but are very, very persevering. Throw enough squirrels at the pole and the slippery stuff gets wiped off.

Chilli never worked for me either. I used 1,000,000 scoville chilli sauce (birds just don't have the receptors to notice it). It obviously affected the squirrels, you could see them awkwardly chomping the bird food! But it didn't stop them! In the end all the feeders got fitted with cages and the squirrels have to make do with what ends up on the floor. The finches (mainly siskins!) are particularly messy, so the squirrels don't go hungry. Sparrowhawk gets fed up though.

Just at moment the birds are doing bird-things (spring!) so not many about. They'll be back!

 

[foxy]

I used to put a seed bell up in the garden for the Lorikeet's but the seed that fell attracted rats (if they aren't attracted enough by the spent grain) picked up my old galvanised watering can filled it up and nothing came out the spout. It has no rose on it looked down the spout and there was a rat looking back at me jammed hard in the spout.

 

[Clint]

Nice birds Foxy.

 

[foxy]

Nice birds Foxy.

But very noisy, we have Bottle Brush on the front nature strip, they often congregate in there eating the nectar.

 

[Clint]

I got a bottle brush plant...

 

[foxy]

I got a bottle brush plant...

They grow pretty big, have to keep pruning mine.

 

[Clint]

Mine is a few feet high but I got it in a big pot..had it years.

 

[Alex.mc]

Haven't seen a Thrush in years. They used to be a common bird even in the garden

Yes, I remember them in my parent's South London Garden when I was a kid, but they just disappeared! Jays also.
Moving to Croydon 7-8 years back I was pleased to see the Jays, but astonished and amazed and very happy to see the Thrush a little while back. It turns up every now and again.