Do You Feed Birds?

[Gunilla]

I feed birds all winter. It's such fun to watch them. We had some hawfinches here today and a nuthatch.  It' getting cold now, -7 C this morning and the small tits eat a lot of sunflower seeds.
Earlier today when I went for a walk with our dogs I saw some long-tailed tits. They are the cutest birds but never come into the garden.

[TC]

I use peanuts and sunflower hearts although the price has trebled for these items in the past two years. The sunflower hearts used to cost £12.50 for 20 kilos - now they are £ 37.50.  My supplier tells me that this is because growers have now gone over to crops to produce bio-fuel.  I used to feed niger seed for the Goldfinches but the Sparrows and Greenfinches found them and it became far too expensive to keep this up.  However, the Goldfinches eat the sunflower hearts. I make my own fat crumbs from lard, wholemeal flower and peanuts put through a blender.  These can either be scattered around under bushes or packed into a coconut shell.  Every bird in the garden will eat this.  Remember that birds need water as well so fill up a dish or shallow container every day. Apart from what I put out, our pair of Sparrowhawks feed quite well from our garden birdlife !
Regarding black sunflower seeds, I used these for about five years and used the resulting husks as a garden mulch.  As far as I am aware, they had no affect on any of my plants other than as a useful mulch.
 It's amazing to note the density of birds in a suburban garden.  All year we have Starlings, Blackbirds, Song Thrush, House Sparrows, Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Dunnocks, Robins, Goldfinches, Collared Doves, Woodpigeons, Wren, Rooks, Carrion Crows, Magpies, Jackdaws and assorted Gulls...  In addition to these, in Winter we have Blackcaps, Siskins, Goldcrests, Yellowhammers and the occasional Grey Wagtail. 
Yesterday, we went a few miles inland to watch a Snow Goose that has turned up with a wintering flock of Greylags.

[mark smyth]

There are photos of snow geese on the SOC web site
http://www.the-soc.org.uk/photos-2008-2009-winter.htm

[mark smyth]

Grosbeak

[Maggi Young]

Grosbeak

Wild?  He's absolutely furious!   


We've never had hawfinches.... had a nuthatch once, but we think he was lost 

[Anthony Darby]

What ever happened to camouflage?

[David Lyttle]

I would love to have grosbeaks come to the garden. Can I swap you some starlings?

If you can get Paul to send me some Australian maggies, you can have some grosbeaks.

How many do you want? 1,2 dozen, hundred?

[Tony Willis]

I feed the little birds and the little birds feed the bigger birds. What a good perch the feeder makes.9.30 this morning,needless to say there was nothing else feeding

[maggiepie]

I would love to have grosbeaks come to the garden. Can I swap you some starlings?

If you can get Paul to send me some Australian maggies, you can have some grosbeaks.

How many do you want? 1,2 dozen, hundred?
[/quote]
As many as you can, I'll chuck in some crows for free.
Oh to hear a magpie serenade.

[maggiepie]

I feed the little birds and the little birds feed the bigger birds. What a good perch the feeder makes.9.30 this morning,needless to say there was nothing else feeding

What a fabulous bird, not sure I'd want him here though, he might eat my chickadees.

[jomowi]

I feed the little birds and the little birds feed the bigger birds. What a good perch the feeder makes.9.30 this morning,needless to say there was nothing else feeding

Walking along our suburban (old) railway walk last year, I was startled by a sparrow hawk which landed 2m in front of me.  I stood still and he/she disappeared underneath some dense cover.  Moments later he emerged with a blackbird in his talons.  I am not sure whether he had seen the blackbird go under there, or whether it was opportunistic having gone under there to escape from me, - probably the former.  As sparrow hawks have to live too, I did not intervene, and we continued to stare at each other for what seemed an age.  He finally decided that discretion was the better part of valour and flew off leaving behind a frightened, but otherwise unharmed blackbird.

On another occasion, I witnessed a stoat pursue and kill a fully grown rabbit, - a fascinating if gruesome sight. The rabbit knew what was coming and its screams were pathetic, but it was dispatched very quickly.  Two incidents of being in the right place at the right time, - preferable to spending hours in the cold 'nature watching'.

Maureen

[gote]

I (or rather my dear wife  ) feed the birds that stay over winter.
In Sweden you can buy balls of suet mixed with seed. They come in a net so you hang the net on a hook or in a dispenser that you hang on a hook.
The tits are especially fond of these.
We also give them a mix of sunflower seed and oats also in a dispenser. There is no problems with rodents as long as the contraptions are hung in a suitable place.
I agree the husks are a nuisance I sometimes think I should put a small tarp under to collect.
We have great tit, blue tit,  Eurasian Nuthatch ( Sitta europaea ) Parus ater, the odd woodpecker and various others that I do no tknow the name on. The long tailed tit is unfortunately very rare - but charming. the Bullfinch  Pyrrhula pyrrhula is supposed to signal extra cold weather when they show themselves.
Göte

   

[Roma]

We have two peanut feeders, one on the kitchen windowsill giving a close view of red squirrels and birds, mainly tits (coal, blue and great).  Chaffinches feed onthe ground and there are robins around. We often see tree creepers on the trees in the wood behind the house.  Last winter there were hundreds of siskins feeding on the larch seeds, usually on the trees, but after windy spells they were on the house roof and on the ground (both sexes, Mark).  Last year there was a heavy crop of cones on the larch, but this year I can't see any new cones.
The most exotic bird I have seen recently is a black pheasant.  I didn't see him very well the first couple of times as he was a bit away on a dull day but yesterday he walked past fairly close and I could see he has a barred tail like a normal coloured pheasant though the rest of him is black.  I saw him cross the road today so he may not survive much longer if he's not careful.

[LarsB]

We did feed the birds until last spring. The mild winters the last couple of years have mede the rat population explode and suddely ew had rats all over. They were under the birdfeeder in the middel of the day, picking up the food that the bids had scattered from the feeder. They got into the house and into the walls of my garage. I still haven't got rid of them. They are extremly intelligent animals and can work out how a trap works very quickly. So a word of warning. If you there is the rat with a fe wkilometers of where you live, keep yours eyes open for any sign of them. Once they have moved in they are very hard to get rid of.

Kind regards

Lars

[TC]

I second what Lars has said.  We have mice in the loft which have been attracted to the debris from the bird feeders, made a run through the cavity wall insulation and have a nest somewhere under the loft insulation.  I have a humane trap which catches them on a daily basis  - 8 since they appeared indoors - and then I take them on a trip up-country and release them into the wild.  At least they have a fighting chance of survival.  I hope that there is no such thing as a homing mouse !!