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.

We walk down a long path between fields and nature reserves in a suburban area. There a couple of people who are out at 7am scattering seed and if you are there early enough the path is so busy with all kinds of birds and squirrels.

Must admit the pigeons at the feeders in our garden are getting on my nerves a bit, although the smaller birds don’t seem to be put off by them. We are on a sparrow hawk flight path and they don’t seem the most observant pigeons......

Lovely to hear that there are sparrows because they have become so rare. (I remember how they used to be everwhere when I grew up - even in the city). I'm the same with "our" tadpoles at the moment. My family jokes that I care more about the frog babies than I care about them abd that they haven't been allowed to eat any cucumber or spinach because it's all for the taddies 😁.

One of my favorite things is to watch the birds in the morning before getting ready for work. I have a bird bath and there are birds all over the shrubs waiting their turn to hop in. They're mostly small birds not sure what they all are blue tits and some brownish coloured birds. I think I have at least a couple of blackbirds who have a lovely song in the evenings. I had a robin who followed me around closely in the garden. Haven't seen him (or her) in a few weeks now so hope he (or she) is ok. I have two pigeons that seem to always be together. They don't bother me or the other birds or cause any problems in my garden, but the magpies are noisy and scare away the other smaller birds. They attacked a blackbird nest and killed 2 out of the three babies. I could do without the magpies.

What a lovely thread, it’s heart warming to know that lots of people are feeding the birds! ☺️

I’ve been feeding them for years at all our different homes. I’ve had blackbirds, robins, starlings, all the different tits (great, coal, long tailed, blue etc.) greenfinches, goldfinches, wrens, chaffinches, house sparrows, dunnocks, corvids, including the elusive Jay (clever little buggers!), pigeons, doves... One year we had a massive flock of siskins appear, I was so chuffed! ☺️ Never saw them again though. Then a few days before we moved from that house, a lovely little song thrush appeared! Had never seen one in the garden before, so was a little sad that it happened when we were about to leave 😔

Since lockdown, a breeding pair of blackbirds starting visiting our back garden (we feed the birds at the front) and it became clear that they had a nest in our hedge so we immediately started feeding them. Not long after they thanked us with 4 gorgeous fledglings! ☺️ They’ve been hopping around our garden now for weeks and we’re still feeding them. Mum and Dad look like they’ve got another brood on the go too so hopefully we’ll see more fledglings soon. I love nature! 😍

For those of you that are concerned about keeping your bird baths clean, try adding this Aviclens ☺️

TooGood2BeTrue I have taddies too! They were rescued from a puddle that was drying out. I’m obsessed with them and have moved the garden bench so I can watch them ( and talk to them like a mad lady). Back legs on some although I can’t decide if they are toads or frogs as I never saw the spawn.

Feeding them is a great way to use up the limp lettuce.

Sorry fir the derail ( although I guess a few may become bird food),here’s a leg photo.

And one showing a thicker tail. Is that a toad do you think? There’s other frogs for sure as they are flecked but others are just black.

I used to feed the birds when we lived rurally. It began accidentally when I put some crumbs out, then I started buying bird seed and gathered quite a following, mostly sparrows, robins, a few blackbirds, waiting at the back of the house every morning. One morning I had the terrace door open and was going to feed the birds in a few minutes. I heard a rustling at the door and looked over, thinking the neighbour's cat was there (he came to visit every day), but instead a blackbird had hopped in and was trying to get the bag of bird seed open. It saw me looking but quite unashamedly continued to peck at the bag before I shooed it out. From then on I started noticing a blackbird sitting front and centre right at the terrace door every morning, but I was careful to only open the door when I had the food ready.

@StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes I live in Sweden. We live on the edge of a forest so we get a lot of different types of birds in the garden.

How very lovely! Any way you can record it?

Leflic I don't know whether mine are frogs or toads either, they are speckled and turning are bronze colour right now 😁. I got the spawn for the kids to watch them grow and they are interested in them but nowhere near as invested as I am. Most of mine have backlegs now as well, and I'm keeping dishes out with water to catch little insects for them. I'm just not sure yet how to get them back to their natural pond (it's about 800m away, too far for them to hop, I think).

TooGood2BeTrue gold speckles are frogs! They only need to go back to mate. They just need damp places to hang out until next Spring and somewhere quiet to hibernate apparently. I had two die over winter year before last, in the pond. 😞Not sure why though. I was very sad they survived birds and cats all year but not the ice.

This lovely thread reminds me of life with my (late) parents: my father sitting in the kitchen complaining that the birds were fed before he could expect to be given any breakfast.

One of the most cheering sights I have ever seen in our garden was a flock of long tailed tits all feeding at the same time on a hanging block of suet. They looked like a flying feather duster, all together! They came quite a few times one year but sadly not since.

I used to feed the birds in my old house. Most common was the starlings.

I actually watched a very precocious starling demand its food from mum and dad once.

Poor things looked knackered.

Then we got a cat. At first she wasn’t bothered, a year later she decided actually she liked birds. So we had to stop.

I’ve moved now and there are too many cats around here to start feeding which is sad

There used to be a gentleman that would feed the birds in one of our local parks. He would actually stand with food in the palm of his hand and the small birds would pop out of the shrubbery and land on his hand to feed. It was wonderful.

Saw a young blackbird catch a worm the other day. Oh my, he was so very proud of himself! Not a clue what to do with it, mind, flew onto the bird table to stuff his face with oats and mealworms after a bit of unsuccessful wrangling with it

My elderly dad spends a fortune feeding the birds! It is all that has got him through these last few months.
Apparently different birds like different things so he spends ages getting each feed ready.
He too has a one-legged blackbird like someone mentioned a while back!

I overslept today.

There were doves out, but no smaller birds.

@ Arethereanyusernamesleft that explains it then, knew it wasn’t UK but couldn’t think where such a mix of birds might be. Lucky you 😁

Has anyone else seen a blackbird repeatedly bashing a snail against a stone. It's a distinctive noise that led me to look out to see what was happening. I'm guessing it leads to a tasty snack for the blackbird... but would love to know for sure.

Goodness, google does have something on the subject. Could I have muddled a blackbird and a song thrush?

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/do-birds-other-than-song-thrushes-break-snail-shells-on-stones/

Blackbirds do it too but not as good as songthrush. If it was a songthrush you would know by it’s very prominent speckles, female blackbird is brown and male very black with yellow beak. Fascinating behaviour though isn’t it.

Congratulations on becoming a Disney Princess @Gingernaut (What do you mean you’re not singing in wonderful harmony with your avian associates? Pchah...)

@StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes

Thank you, yes it is fascinating.

I heard it many, many times from an open window and only once actually saw it. I'm sure the one I saw was a blackbird, I love to think the others could have been from a song thrush.