Birds in my garden

Well, acutally in next doors garden. How I can I get them to come foraging in mine?

Next door have blackbirds, thrushes and sparrows, and probably lots of others that I haven't seen, but only the wood pigeons, blue tits and collared doves venture accross on to my bird table (the blue tits don't eat from the feeder, but took all the dog fur I left out for them - a whole onion neet full!)

So how can I be more welcoming (other than get rid of the dogs!)

dougal

Water?
An appropriate (not too deep, not steep-sided) bird bath, that is a *reliable* source of water is a very good thing. I suppose a pond would be even better...

Mind, it might only mean that next door has all the Snails for the Thrushes... you haven't been tossing them over the fence, have you? Laughing

Treacodactyl

Water is definitely good, we often have blackbirds & robins bathing in our ponds.

If there is somewhere where the dogs don't often go then a reasonably sized stone is useful for thrushes to brake the snails on.

Another good thing to do is plant plenty of shrubs around the edge of the garden, it gives the birds somewhere to fly to for cover and, after a few years, nest. One of the first things I did when we moved in is plant plenty of thorny shrubs such as hawthorn and beriberis. In another year or two I think they will be large enough for birds to start nesting.

If you can leave seed heads on native plants and grasses that also lures finches in over winter.

alison

What feed do you put out. We use various hanging feeders, with lots of different seeds and nuts, and get a good variety of birds visiting.

sean

Water is good, and some hanging feeders should bring in a wider variety of birds.

Bernie66

In my old house it seemed to take months with no results but eventually managed to get the local population of bluetits, great tits , starlings and sparrows on the meagre birdtable that i put up. Blackbirds were common as were crows but i did eventually watch a kestral take one of the bluetits from the fence. Not a nice sight but pretty spectacular.
Is it me or are sparrows on the decline over the last 10 years, starlings seemed to become rarer but feel as if they are making a comeback.
My advice is persevere, they will eventually get the hang of what is good for them-and ensure that there is food out for them when it is scarce, not just during the summer months. You will be amazed what you can see in winter when all the birds are hungry

sean

The overall sparrow population is in severe decline (though we have loads in our clematis). I haven't seen any figures for starlings. There don't seem to be many round here, but I haven't lived here long enough to know whather that's a decline or not.

Bernie66

As a lad (30 years ago now) i used to feed hundreds of starlings in my parents back garden, and watch them in huge flocks over the allotmentsat the back of our house, now i rarely see them in any numbers so to me its a decline. What is the reason for the fall in sparrow numbers-they seem pretty good at adapting to town conditions-any ideas?

sean

Bernie66 wrote:

I meant I didn't know if it was a decline locally to me, if you see what I mean.
No-one seems to have a satisfactory explanation for the sparrow one, my guess is that it's multi-factorial, decline in nesting sites, reduction in available food, lots of things probably.

masha

decline of house sparrows

House sparrows are in decline, apparently, because people are keeping their houses in better condition than they used to. House sparrows like to make nests in holes and gaps under the roof line, but people are fixing up their eaves and not leaving spaces for sparrows.
Putting up groups of boxes (sparrows like to nest near each other) high on the wall is supposed to help give them back some suitable locations for nesting.

Bernie66

Thanks for that Masha, Might give that a go next year, though will be frowned on for not encoraging the "prettier" birds as my 10 year old would say. Probably end up having to put boxes up for both!

wellington womble

Actually, it was sparrows that made me think of it, I noticed them out the front, and later round the back, next door, so they're obviously on the increase round here.

I can't put up nesting boxes, are there are too many cats, but I might have a go at some water. I put out sunflower seeds in the feeders (which the blue tits totally ignored this year, after pilfering all the fur from the next branch along!) and peanuts on the bird table. These are imediately snaffled by the wood pigeons and crow type things. I haven't got muc hin the way of shrubs at the moment, although they didn't seem to have any difficulty finding the cherry tree last year!

judith

I think most of the country's sparrows are living in my sister's hedge - there are hundreds of the blighters in there!

wizz

We're bvery lucky having alsorts of diffferent species visit us. (tits- blue cole & grape) sparrows, redwings, lapwings, blackbirds robins, kestrels, barn owls, yellow hammers, wag tails, woodpigeons, swallows etc etc. I think the reason we get them is that our garden (with our neighbours) is a bit like an island within a large open acreage of quite intensively farmed arable farmland.

We hoped our cat (whom we've only had since Jan) was starting to specialise in rodents - having struggled to get a huge (thankfully dead) rat through the cat flap last week. It was about a third her size and was quite impressive!

Unfortunatley however she got confined to barracks yesterday after we had to retreive a couple of fledging sparrows from her clutches. Sad

Not sure whether this was really worth it in the big scheme of things but didn't want to have to retrieve a third on the same weekend.

The sparrows might have been trying to make maiden flights from the nests in the eves of the house (actually its a new extension roof that they've managed to get under...!) so maybe they were a little wobbly on their flight feathers. One survived the cat trauma only to fly straight into a bucket of water from which we had to fish him out... We placed him in the hedge and away from prying claws but somehow doubt he made it in view of his dodgy flight skills.

Meanwhile Bramble the cat is being lined up for a bell and collar in the (perhaps forlorn) hope that it brings down the hit rate.... Our last cat used to specialise in rodents and baby rabbits were a particular favourite. Unfortunately she was also quite good a loosing her prey once inside. We played host to one small rabbit for at least 2 or 3 days once (judging from the mess it made in the spare room)... but I digress!

wizz

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