They were waiting for me

[Gingernaut]

I've taken to feeding the birds.

I do have a feeder, but am aware that some birds are 'hop around headbutting the pavement' ground feeders, not 'dangle acrobatically in an entertaining way' feeders.

My back yard is gravel and rocks.

So, after noticing an increase in sparrows and wagtails after Eastern European neighbours started chewing sunflower seeds whilst having a chat and a smoke on their doorsteps, I bought some seed and have taken to scattering it up the pavement, in the early morning, as I go to work.

Today, as I left the house, there was a small gathering of collared doves, sparrows and wagtails, sitting on the pavement.

As I passed, scattering a tiny Tupperware box of sunflower seeds, the birds flew up, over my head and then landed on the pavement behind me.

I'm going to try and see if they're there tomorrow.

If you saw the numbers of pigeons on the arable fields around here, you'd know why they're less deserving. There are literally hundreds of them. They're also dumb. I've seen a pigeon and a collared dove in a fight over food - collared dove is about 1/2 the size - pigeon had no chance. Just sort of wobbled its head around.
I've grown to really love sparrows. I think of them as the Italians of the bird world. They're always in a massive group and they make so much noise! Sometimes a massive squabble blows up, they get louder and louder then suddenly all fly off in a flurry. 2 minutes later they're back, taking turns equably on the bird feeder.
Another cute thing is to put out some hair or fur (eg from your hairbrush or your dog) in the spring. The birds take it for their nests - I like thinking of them lining their nests to make them nice and soft.
We've also had a cuckoo calling here for the past week

Why is a hungry pigeon less deserving than a hungry sparrow?
The pigeon represents Amazon - grabbing anything it can get and not caring what gets damaged in the process
(Dirties my mini wildlife pond, knocks the feeder over and damages my bedding plants)

The sparrow (and the rest of the smaller birds) is my local shop that knows you spend more with Amazon and Tesco but hopes you'll spend just enough for him to raise his family

I am a bird feeder as well, and they can't half get through some seed in a short time.plus some suet in half a coconut shell,
I have 3 regular Robins, a few blue tits, and blackbirds
This morning i was fascinated watching the garden activity,
I had the Robins, not all at once,a couple of pigeons a greedy crow or two who if any bread is out will take several beakfuls at once,and a lot on magpies around here

We used to have bats until the neighbours across the back cut the trees down
I do hear an owl sometimes at night
I also have 3 Ragdoll cats,who just laze about and never even attempt to go after them [thank goodness]

We have sparrows, robin, gold finch and blue tits, along with magpies, starlings and blackbirds. It's awesome, I really enjoy watching them, although as we have a cat, I don't feed them. I always know when my cat is outside as they all start screeching. The cat is scared of them.

I'm not fussed on starlings - they attacked our sparrows' nest in the eaves, and I suspect they lost some chicks.

I have also noticed a lot more birds of prey overhead. I usually notice because they are being harried by a bunch of other birds.

I wish I could feed them, but I suspect my cat would see it as eating al fresco.

What an utterly charming thread

We've got mostly sparrows and a few blackbirds. Sometimes finches and starlings and robins. I've got a bird feeder with fatballs and seeds. And I put out mealworms on the garden table.

There are a couple of rather nasty looking birds - grey and black, about crow sized - that occasionally turn up. I chase them away because they frighten off the smaller birds. They only go for the food on the garden table, and I'm thinking about getting a cage thingy so they can't get to that.

One blackbird regards itself as the boss of the garden. If it sees me in the kitchen, it stands on the garden table and glares and practically folds its arms and taps its foot until I get out there and put food out.

My Sainsbury delivery order these days seems to go: wine/cake/bird food. They ran out of mealworms last week so substituted some RSPB buggy nibbles. Hmm, not sure how the birds are going to feel about that, so I mixed some in with the regular dried mealworms that I still had. You can guess the rest.

Fascinating to read this.
We made thing last year designed to feed small birds, but we got visits from a family of 4 or 5 magpies who just bullied all the others.

Is it just that I need a variety of food and feeders?

I don't mind the bigger birds but the magpies, huge crows and pigeons seem to see off the smaller ones.

We got my MIL meal worms one year for her birthday. Then she gained a superfan who used to come and tap on her glass back door!

Reminds me of a song we sang at assembly at school which I can only remember one line of ‘don’t forget to feed the birds in winterrrrr’

Pigeons get a bad press but Ive noticed that they dont chase the smaller birdy away like the magpies do. I often see small birds feeding alongside pigeons in my garden.

We have quite the fan club here, our regular daily feedings attract, Sparrows, Starlings, Blackbirds, Robins, Magpies, Crows, Jackdaws, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves, Town Pigeons, Finches, Thrushes, Blue Tits, Wrens and the occassional Bull Finch. We also have A Woodpecker that visits, as well as a Pheasant and of course the Sparrow Hawk - its sad when he/she takes one of the smaller birds but thats the circle of life and we don't interfere with it.

Most are "resident" birds family groups that nest here year on year and can be very territorial with "newcomers" - they all have their prefered food and times to feed/forage. We don't have any bird feeders up we scatter all around the different parts of the garden, in old plant pots and tubs under the trees and bushes and on the lawn so each type of bird chooses where it looks for it's food in its natural setting and it works well.

What we do have is a raised bird bath which is situated directly in front of our full length lounge window and that provides endless pleasure for us and the birds. Even the larger birds really enjoy a bath and they get totally immersed in the water splashing about and soaking themselves from head to toe. I LOVE watching the sparrows who come for a community swim - and I do mean swim I never knew birds liked to swim but these do and theres all kinds of personalities, timid ones, boistrous ones, ones who splash others and even some who like to dive bomb and splash everyone else lol

As we also have a family of Hedgehogs we also have a low bird bath to provide them with water and some of the pigeons go and sit in that for a long soak lol Both water baths are cleaned out and topped up twice a day at the moment.

The excited chirpings and tweetings whenever one of us appears in the garden is lovely and some of the birds don't even bother to wait for us to go back inside before they are down grabbing the best bits.

I always keep the bird baths filled, especially in our incredibly hot summers (western Sydney). Here is one of my favourite photos from my garden of some Rainbow Lorikeets.

We started feeding the birds in our garden a few years ago. I love seeing all the different types that visit our feeders. Most of the time it is blue tits, great tits, nuthatches, magpies, blackbirds and jackdaws but we have even had green woodpeckers and spotted nutcrackers.

The best thing that has come out of it so far has to be one of the jackdaws that has become quite tame. We have nicknamed him Jack (not very original, I know!) and he has been coming to our garden for 2 years now. We can recognise him because he has no left foot. When we first saw him he was being bullied by the other jackdaws and I opened the door to try and frighten them away from him. He must have been very young as he wasn't really scared of me whereas the other birds flew away. I rolled some peanuts towards him but he didn't take them until I went back inside. Since that day we regularly put food out in the same spot for him and occasionally if we forget he will fly onto the windowsill and tap on the window to get our attention. I think he has us well trained

One of my favourite things about our current home is the mature trees and bushes with the little bird families.

Hate the pigeons, but not seen much of them since lockdown but I moved the food and stopped putting in on the ground.

The best thing was putting the feeder inbetween the trees so now the leaves are there the pigeons can't see or get to it. We do have a pair of collared doves turn up in the last couple of weeks. They are so stupid. I actually thought they must belong to someone as you can actually stand next to them and they don't budge.

We have robins, blue and grey tits, sparrows, blackbirds, a pair of magpies, goldfinches pass through in large groups. Even the odd Jay.

Was lovely watching a baby sparrow sitting squeaking at it's mum who was hoping to and fro to the mealworms to feed it.

The blackbirds are ace. One of them looks for me to fill the feeders. They wait on the ground under the trees when the tits are there to catch the bits that fall. They also follow DP when he's strimming the grass to get the worms.

Only issue now is the new cat next door is a hunter. Dp watched it go for a magpie.
None of the other cats bother.

You have to be careful to carry on once you start, especially in the winter as bird learn to rely on particular sources of food and will starve if it's withdrawn

I do worry about that.

We had a very friendly female blackbird who would visit us for years, Sue. She would sit with me while I was gardening and whenever I came across a worm or a slug, she would hop in the hole to gobble it up. She became so tame she would let me hold her and nuzzle her. She had the most beautiful smell like perfume, I always wondered if it was her own smell of if she had another lady gardener friend who was also snuggling her!
All of a sudden Sue stopped coming. I was heartbroken it was like losing a friend.
All these years of feeding birds and never have I met another bird like Sue.

Where I live you can’t put feeders or attractants out between April and October. It attracts the bears!

😱

Today I got the earlier train, it was dark and raining.

Scattered seeds, but there was welcoming committee.

DH has a daily routine with his various feeders, he has them rigged up with trays underneath to catch the mess the goldfinches make. He keeps a monthly log to see what comes in the garden and has made sparrow boxes attached to the walls of the house. We have a nesting colony now.
It’s great having a garden and I love watching all the birds in the 2 bird baths we have out or our small pond, we have a hedgehog most nights who I feed in a feeding station so the cats can’t get to the food. Warm nights when we have windows wide open are my favourite as we sometimes hear the tawny owl calling and once or twice have seen it on a post in our garden. Had a fox once years ago but not recently.
We did once have a very rare bird 20 odd years ago (Dh is a proper birder so knew-what it was) hundreds of twitchers cam to see it and we were on tv 😳nothing so unusual since though.

@arethereanyusernamesleft. Where do you live to be getting spotted nutcrackers?

I've definitely been noticing the birds more since I started wfh. We have a crazy little wag tail who loves our swing area. Wood pigeons who love the front lawn. And some brown birds that love the trees. We're lucky to have a very large garden but it's mostly grass, big old trees and a rockery that dh starts fixing up every year and only gets so far before it becomes wilderness again.

I seen this little fella once staring it at me through patio doors before he moved to the handle.

I should point out we live surrounded by fields on 3 sides. Hence the overgrowth through the fence.

That is a beautiful bullfinch @nevertalkstostrangers 👍🏻

Lovely thread thanks OP. We have lots of birds (rural) but I stopped putting feeders up because all the rooks and pigeons were even more attracted to the garden. I sprinkle oats and fill nooks and crannies with fresh water as I noticed that the pigeons seem to poo in my bird bath, I'm afraid to say on a bird loving thread that I really don't like the pigeons at all.