Lack of insects, birds starving

[noblegiraffe]

I'm seeing a lot of discussion on twitter about a distinct lack of insects this year, possibly due to the cold spring, but obviously pesticides are also an issue.

Birds who eat insects are really struggling and there are reports of baby birds dying because their parents can't feed them.

Please put food (and water) out for the birds! My bird feeder has been mobbed all week.

https://twitter.com/woodlandbirder/status/1662080648922779650?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g (warning: contains picture of dead chicks)

Same had rats in the vicinity that were eating bird food in peoples gardens so it makes me really wary tbh

I found a big saucer with chains which I hang below my bird feeder to catch the bits. I also moved the feeder to the end of the garden and it now hangs from a tree. Have seen birds using it and little ones picking up the bits from the saucer.

Foxes seem to keep the rats down but the idiots round here have chopped all their trees down and killed the vixens because they were playing with the smelly shoes they left outside. They would hate my garden, it's semi wild.

I feed the birds all year especially now as there are a lot less of them.

In that case I will just let the birds eat our worms then. Conveniently I can only afford the gardener once a month these days so the garden is something of a meadow anyway.

This would explain why a month ago I saw a larger bird devouring a much smaller bird out on the lawn. It behaved as if it hadn't eaten a square meal in years! Wolfing it down ....

I remember how windscreens and cat bumpers used to be caked in bugs even ten years ago. Now, nothing. I’m lucky if I have to even use the wipers for anything not dust or rain.

I’m sure this is totally fine and will have no long term biosphere consequences we couldn’t possibly map.

I think that all of the insects in the world are currently in my garden playing James and the giant peach!

Mumsnet is encouraging, to read about so many people in so many different threads talking about how they are trying to fix this big mess by doing no mow May and introducing different habitats. It's good to read.

We have bird boxes in 3 or 4 of the trees in our garden. We have sparrows in one and blue tits in the others.

The blue tits never stop going in and out all day. It’s an amazing site. Thankfully we do everything we can to make our garden as ecologically diverse as it can be. We leave patches wild, have several bee and insect hotels and bat boxes. We have feeders dotted around the garden and we even feed the red kites.

I get depressed when it see those absolutely hideous plastic grass, plastic green walls, concrete everything else ‘gardens’ on Instagram.

it is really worrying, and can't help but think that things like this are part to blame

https://www.dorset.live/news/dorset-news/beautiful-river-lim-ecologically-dead-8436588

i know there has been a lot recently about sewage over flows especially into the sea but its the rivers that are paying a very high price too.

Water companies shouldn't be run privately for profit. if bonuses and dividends where withheld if they overflow they'd soon be investing in making sure it didn't happen.

We feed ours loads of stuff. They are very partial to packs of sultanas at the mo - especially the blackbirds.
They have the gutter around the conservatory to wash in/drink from. If it gets too low I top it up with a hosepipe
My cats are really annoyed. They're not allowed outside anyway, but the squabbling from the baby starlings really winds them up - and woodpigeons shagging on the fence.

We have two bird feeders poles and a small bird cage with a ground feeder inside, in the back garden - we put out suet blocks, fat balls, peanuts, nyjer seeds, sunflower hearts, suet pellets, a robin and blackbird mix x 2 and mealworms, plus water. Apart from the peanuts and nyjer seeds, they are all gone in a day. We get ring necked parakeets, sparrows, chaffinches, resident pair of robins, resident pair of blackbirds, a dunnock family, collared doves, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, stock doves, magpies, crows, rooks, jackdaws, gold finches, red kites and buzzards overhead; and occasionally sparrow hawks, kestrels, woodpeckers, pied wagtails, green finches, redwings, siskins, chiffchaffs; and very occasionally a peregrine or waxwing or jay or green woodpecker or nuthatch.

We do have a native British hedge, several rowan trees and a log pile. Our dream is to get a pond, after the extension has been built. We also get hedgehogs, bats and occasionally foxes.

I have noticed the birds are frantic; the suets go the most, quickly followed by the robin and blackbird seed. They clearly recognise us, and when we go out to fill up the feeders, there is much chatter!

We have noticed a decline in thrushes, green finches, bull finches and goldfinches.

I forgot the tits - blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits and coal tits.

Rampantukulele · Today 12:12

I have never used weedkiller before but was considering for first time at end of summer out of desperation. As a gardener do you have a natural way to get rid of horsetail, it's absolutely rampant and outcompetes and kills off everything else.

Horsetail is the very devil, I help a disabled friend with his garden, which is infested with the stuff, from his next door neighbour. It's very resistant to herbicides, unfortunately.

It grows in a grid pattern, 3 feet underground. You are best off pulling the plants out / off at ground level, keep doing it and they sprout up an awful lot less. You can put the stems on the compost, they don't re-root.

@Quisquam I want to live in your garden

Our feeders are full but no birds on them. We do have lots and lots of crows round about though. And a pair of buzzards in the trees. So they may keep the wee birds away.

Are bird feeders actually a good idea for the ecosystem as a whole? My fear is they allow increases in the bird population which aren't supported by the insect population size - which will then further damage insect populations rather than allowing the natural cycle of prey/predator population increase and decrease i.e. a couple of years of lower bird numbers would allow insect numbers to recover somewhat? (Obviously insect numbers are also impacted by all the human activities that have already been discussed by pp's)

Do adult birds give the food we put out for them to their chicks? Or is it a matter of the parents eating it, and eating well, so that they can then go further to find grubs & insects etc to feed the chicks?

@Arewehumanorarewecupboards

Our gardening consists of mowing the lawn and putting annuals in the plant pots for the bees! Apart from that, we leave the garden to its own devices! (Plus we have two hedgehog houses)

I think this is a much bigger issue than pesticides or cold winters.

There's hardly any habitats in some areas due to paved driveways and gardens, not even a potted plant around.

Send them to me. Loads of bugs and birds. In fact this morning we had a bird in the house, captured it in a tea towel and placed on the lawn, gave it a drink of water and crunched up a fat ball, moved a plastic sand pit over for protection. It rested a couple hours and then flapped about, fell off a step and flew off.

We live on the edge of a wood. Paved patio and balcony but the rest is lawned, until it meets the wood.

Also water.
Can I ask how you stop the bird feeder being swamped by maniac squirrels? Don’t say a done because that doesn’t work.

We have a lot of birds visit our garden. We have fat balls, mealworms and mixed seeds in hanging feeders and a ground feeder inside a cage. The cage was necessary as a kitten kept wolfing down the mealworm. We have 2 massive plant saucers that I make sure are filled with water, even in winter. I just remove the frozen water and put more in throughout the day.

My most welcome guests are blackbirds because they run around the garden, do lovely little mating moves and they sunbathe too. Least welcome are the pigeons because they sit in the water bowls, do giant shits everywhere and are ridiculous sex pests to other pigeons. We have robins and sparrows, collared doves and different tits. My lounge faces the back garden so I can watch their antics all day.

I do shoo magpies out of the garden, one got an egg last week and I didn't know where it had come from. I do have nesting blackbirds but I couldn't be sure it came from that nest so didn't want to pop it back in just in case. It was very sad. I have loads of shrubs and trees, we definitely have insects living in the foliage as the birds are always pecking at them.

There used to be so many insects and butterflies when I was a child. Even when I go on holiday I see so many more than here in England.
You have to be careful with bird feeders though as they can spread diseases

My garden has been noticeably declining in bees over the years until the last two when I only had the small bumblebees and zero honey/masonry bees. This year nothing. No humming at all when I sit out. Its freaking scary.

The rear gardens, or mostly paved yards in our street, back on to those of the next street.
In the last few years, those who had gorgeous mature trees and shrubs have been cutting them down. It's horrible.

I feel sometimes my small patch is like a tiny oasis thanks to the previous green fingered owner. I try to grow things in pots that insects love and threw a box of wildflower seeds in an empty bed last year which have grown again but still not seeing a lot of insects.

Lots of bloody lily beetles but nothing wants to eat them.

Where are all the ladybirds?

I'm lucky to have lots of regular bird visitors. Costs me a fortune!

Sorry, they're all in my back garden...the birds and the bugs. We have lots of gardening for wildlife around here. Means you can ignore all the weeds and pretend you are being environmentally friendly.