A nice thread about garden birds. What comes to your garden? Do you feed them? What food you put out? 🐦

[Corvid19]

Hello armchair twitchers and window watchers!

I got two bird feeding stations for Christmas and am so enjoying watching from my window now I have them set up.

I have various tits and finches (mostly blue tits and chaffinches), robins, wagtails, collared doves, a wood pigeon or two, and many corvids (rooks and jackdaws mostly, but the odd crow too), blackbirds and sparrows. I think anyway... I'm still not quite expert at identifying them!

I put out fat balls (the corvids demolish them!) mixed seed, sunflower seed hearts, peanuts, dried wormy things, and fat pellets.
The peanuts are not so popular, but perhaps they will be with summer birds? I blooming hope so, I have a big bloody sack of them!

Tell about your birds 🐦

Talking of fat balls, this is one of the funniest threads on MN:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/2017083-He-has-eaten-a-fat-ball

Excellent idea about doing a 'grow your own' for bird food @ChardonnaysPetDragon. I had never heard of those bushes but I do have space to plant a few things.

A lone bumblebee? I always feel sad when that happens; poor thing will be cold, disorientated and unable to find it's favourite food! We had 2 or 3 wasps in the house in the first week of January, which was weird.

@LawnFever

Love this thread!!

I’ve signed up for the RSPB Birdwatch - you can sign up here & let them know all the lovely birds you see

www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/

I’ve got a gorgeous regular Robin at the minute, lots of pigeons, sparrows, blackbirds, blue tits.

Once a sparrow hawk caught a pigeon under the tree at the back of the garden, gave me a proper fright! Haven’t seen it again since.

And lots of squirrels, I need to replace my feeders with squirrel proof ones really, they’re actual hooligans!

This looks good! Lots of lovely info on garden birds here, too.

Love the fat balls thread 😂

We moved into a house with a bigger garden and massive uglycypress tree at the end of it so have been getting lots if visitors. Ds and I put out fat balls, peanuts, a mix for robins and suet cakes. So far qe have had wood pigeons, black birds, starlings, magpies, Robins, various tits, and finches. We also live in an area with litsnofnred kites so they circle and I've been seeing a heron fly over fairly often.

We just got our RSPB bird watch kit through for the end of Jan today

Jealous of all the unusual birds at your feeders! I'd LOVE to have a woodpecker, but we are too far away from the woods for them to bother.

We did have a heron for a while, who cleared my pond of frogs. So, I had mixed feelings about that! He was magnificent, though. We have lots of bad gardening wood piles and hidden holes, so there will be plenty frogs hiding there to give me tadpoles this spring. I hope.

Any tips on encouraging birds to a window feeder? I've never had any luck with them.

I'm in a suburban area near a city and don't tend to get too many ununusal birds, though last year we had a Grey Wagtail, which I loved!

I have various feeders - a feeding station with various hangers, an old apple tree where I hang feeders, a covered bird table, a squirrel table and ground feeders.

I put out nuts, fat balls, seed, suet pellets. I can't do meal worms! The Magpies love cheese (esp Xmas Stilton) and I also put cat food remnants out for them (she's an indoor cat mainly with no interest in birds.)

We went mad last year. Our beloved other kitty had died and previously we couldn't put out food, as she was a hunter.

Feeding the birds gives me so much pleasure. It's my hobby really.

I attract

Robins
Blackbirds
Tits
Collared Doves
Woodpigeons
Magpies
Crows
Sparrow or Wren (not sure which? All brown, feees off hanging feeder and ground, but not a Dunnock).

The squirrels eat me out of house and home as I like to put nuts in feeders for the tits. Nuts will always be their first choice.

This year I invested in metal only feeders, having lost so many plastic/wooden ones

Last year, especially in the very cold weather, I attracted a grey wagtail with routinely defrosted shallow water bath on the ground, and food scattered. It would come several times a day, but we seemed to lose it when the hard snow came. I hope it was OK.

Not had any starlings this year. I remember hearing what sounded like a robotic toy and looking out at the starlings chattering, squabbling, stripping the feeders.

It's fascinating watching how they all feed. I try hard to make sure the ground feeders get enough. Pleased to see the Blackbirds are now using the squirrel and bird tables more. I love how they, and Robins, feed. Love how the Blackbirds forage.

I like watching all the birds and although Robins and Blackbirds are my favourites, I admire the Corvids too. They are so smart. I'd love to see a Jay.

We planted lots of bee friendly plants in the summer, and some for birds, but we really need to plant some bird friendly berry winter plants. Bought a viburnum, but it's slow growing!

We have a nesting box, but I worry that if we put it up, Magpies will steal the eggs.
Any advice?

Try planting a cotoneaster, Corvid.

Mine starts out nice and covered in berries in autumn and looks decidedly tatty and stripped by February. I swear the fat pigeons live on it.

@Corvid19, really glad you've signed up to the RSPB birdwatch, it's so important they know about bird numbers. I've joined in for 3 years and i'd ask everyone here to have a go please!
In the Spring when they're breeding it's important that any mealworms are soft as the babies can choke on hard ones so it's best to soak them overnight in hot water, drain them before putting out. It's a faff but so worth it when the fledglings appear

Ooh I'll sign up to that today 👍🏼

Big twitcher here, I'm a bit obsessed. I live on a farm next to a wood so get a lot

Usual blue/great/coal tits, a very territorial Robin, a wren lives in one of my boxes, wood sparrows, pied wagtails, chaffinches, bullfinches, greater spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches and blackbirds

Last spring i had a pair of siskins for the first time and I'm hoping they'll return. One down side is my garden is also on the rotation of a sparrowhawk who sometimes gives me a fright diving past the window. I also have two barn owls in one of my sheds, I'm really hoping for some owlets this year 🙏🏻

The other nice thing about signing up for the RSPB garden bird watch is 20% in the shop!

I'm looking forward to jotting down my birds.

Gosh I'd never heard of siskins, @Footprintsinthegrass I clearly have a lot to learn. 🙂

Not looking forward to soaking dried worms in spring @Daleksatemyshed... they stink badly enough when dry! 😬

Jealous of the owls, but they also give me the heebie jeebies a little 😬

When I moved into my house almost a decade ago, we only had sparrows and (weirdly) blackcaps visiting the garden. We’ve been making the garden a lot more bird friendly since then, by planting a few small fruit trees, shrubs that produce berries and better ground cover.

Roses are often dismissed as a not particularly wildlife friendly option because they’re rubbish for pollinators, but they attract so many greenfly, which in turn bring in lots of insect eating birds. Before the local bluetit population put my garden on their map of “top sites in the village” a lot of my plants were often completely covered in greenfly. These days, it just never gets to that point as the long tailed tits, blue tits, great tits, robins and wrens carry out daily inspections!

Nowadays I get all kinds of birds in my garden. Some are attracted by my bird feeders, some by the food that occurs naturally in the garden.
I too am lucky to get siskin visitors. They are my favourite! They’re so pretty and incredibly “well mannered”, always queuing up patiently for their turn on the feeder. I think they’re worked out that I have something to do with their favourite food appearing every day, as they never fly off when I get close. I have a theory that I could probably grab one, but I’ve obviously never tested that! It’s lovely to be able to watch such pretty little birds up close though 🥰

Aah I've never had Siskins, they're lovely.

Yes, @Corvid19, the smell is not good so I use an old plastic ice cream tub, worms in, hot water, snap the lid on quick before the smell escapes! Nice solid plastic is best (Kellys ice cream tubs are great for this, and a wonderful excuse for some really good ice cream), don't use flimsy plastic or you could end up with mealworm soup running around your kitchen worktops...

Yes, but then you have to open it again next morning, @Daleksatemyshed! 😂

Dh is the birds’ friend. We have sunflower hearts and fat balls delivered by the ton, and to a lesser extent, dried mealworms.
Blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, robins, nuthatches, goldfinches, great spotted woodpeckers, blackbirds, dunnocks, wrens. And of course pigeons.
The ground feeders pick up all the dropped bits from under the hanging feeders.
We also get the odd rose-ringed parakeet (there are loads around here) trying to get into the feeders, but they don’t have much luck. We used to have a peanut feeder for them, but their beaks are so strong, they’d tear the feeder open and empty it in 5 minutes.

What I do is go and sweep some leaves, or get a DC to do it so there are some fresh grubs for the blackbirds and the robin.

We get bluetits, a robin, a couple of blackbirds and a little gang of sparrows. We also can hear an owl from our bedroom but not seen that.
We live on the edge of a town with woods at the back of the garden.
When we moved into this house last summer the garden was completely gravel so now that the lawn has grown I'm going to plant a small crabapple tree for the birds to use as cover near the feeder.
We have a mixed seed feeder at the front and on the dining room window have a feeder on the glass with a mix of suet/seeds/peauts/dried beasties, I also chuck out a handful of that mix when I see the robin and blackbirds lurking about.

I only have a small back yard at home, and I also have a cat, so I don't like to encourage birds into the yard as they'd only end up as prey for the cat. Some years ago we did have a magnificent sparrowhawk swooping onto a pigeon in the neighbour's yard. Really spectacular. I have an allotment and I feed the birds there, it's so lovely to see them. There is a robin and also a couple of male blackbirds who, when they see me, come and sit on the fence because they know I'll be putting food out. I keep it quite simple because it's harder to keep feeders properly clean at the allotment. I have some hanging feeders for fat balls (Home Bargains do really good value boxes of 50 deluxe(!) fat balls) a hanging seed tray for seed, suet pellets, mealworms and sunflower hearts depending on what I've got in. I also put mealworms on the ground for the blackbirds although I have to be careful of the local cats. I found an old ceramic bird bell/fat bell which I fill with melted suet and bird seed, it's really popular with the blue tits. So much so that I bought another one on eBay (they don't seem to be made so much any more, I remember my mum.had one in the 1970s). I also dig over the soil a bit for the blackbirds as they love to search about for worms. I get the blackbirds, a robin, sparrows, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, starlings, wood pigeons, magpies (I try to discourage the woodpigeons and magpies because they tend to hog the feeders and make a mess everywhere). There are nuthatches nesting nearby but they don't come to feed. I also occasionally see a goldfinch. I fight a losing battle with the squirrels who repeatedly pinch the bird food but I suppose I don't mind them really. I get so much pleasure from watching the birds and hearing them singing, I admit to being very fond of the blackbird as it seems to want to interact with me (although I don't want to encourage it to get too friendly around humans)

I have loads of blue tits and great tits.
But also chaffinch, wrens, pigeons, pair of Jay's, crows, Robins.
My favourite is the pair of woodpeckers and the owl

I love garden birds! Watching them is such an innocent pleasure. But i accidentally ordered 20kg of extra fattening winter birdeed - stupid Amazon- my birds won't be able to take off!

@middleager here is my jay! This was this morning. This is ‘little’ jay - we have about 6. This one is very skitty and nervous. This is taken from my kitchen window (very close!)