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)

@Owlglasses how lovely! Can I ask who you got them from? As LadyAstor says, results seem somewhat variable!

It's going to depend a lot on your soil which wildflowers do well. I've got heavy clay which is too fertile for most of the meadow wildflowers. I do no mow May (usually do April too and only mow sporadically all summer long) but we don't get much other than really lush grasses. The slightly mown paths have got some daisies in so for me it's probably better to keep the grass a bit shorter to allow them to thrive. Wildflower mixes tend to be all of eye daisies by year two. If it were up to me I'd plant the whole lawn but DH is wedded to his wretched grass

LadyAstor · Today 21:43

I bought two packs of wildflower seeds from a reputable online retailer last year and all i got was ... grass.

Well, at least you could get stoned!

😃

We have 4 of the mesh feeders and 2 others and they are needing refilled every week at least!

I've given in with only a few days to go of 'no mow May'

Lots of little birds need high shrubs and hedges to build their nests in and to quickly hide awY in.

Ladybirds, and especially when they're young, eat lice. So if your roses are infested with lice you should really do nothing about it and the ladybugs come and breed there bevause there is do much to eat.

Interesting.

Our garden seems to be full of insects. My washing is covered in various bugs when I put it out.
We have a lot of birds too. We have a bird box with baby blue tits in opposite our swing seat and it's lovely to sit and watch the parents zipping in and out every few seconds.

Currently we have blue tits, blackbirds, robins, wrens, wagtails, swallows and song thrushes. I use the Merlin app and that picked up the songs of goldcrest, greenfinch, chaffinch and buzzard yesterday but I didn't actually see them.

We haven't fed the birds this year as we have squirrel problems but might start again if there's an insect shortage.

The birds around my area clearly aren't used to being fed; it took ages for them to take to my bird feeder. I now have regular magpie visitors and this morning saw a finch variety and a bluetit for the first time. I hope word spreads. I put the bird feeder right next to my crabapple tree so the birds have some shielding.

They love the suet pellets with berries in them and the fat balls seem to have been pecked at, too.

Insects are an interesting one. I have a flower bed clearly infested by something as some of the upcoming leaves have been eaten, but it's also overrun with spiders of some sort. They look like house spiders, but firmly stick to the flower bed and there are dozens crawling about every time I water it.

What I am really missing this year are butterflies; I've only seen 2 of them in my garden all spring.

My wildflower mix hasn't really come along yet; I see the odd leaf peeking through, but they seem to grow really slowly compared to the ones I sowed a few summers ago - might the weather play a part?

I think they were Thompson's seeds, but I can't say for sure.

I agree that the results can be variable. In the past I've mixed together two or three packets of seeds - one wildflower, one poppy and something else - and that seems to get a good result. Another thing I've done is sow the seeds in a pot full of soil that I grew bulbs in before, I wonder if the depleted soil is just what wildflowers need.

Just looked it up and feel sure it was these. https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/wildflower-mixture-seeds/3920TM

We wildflower turf put down in a smallish area - like grass turf but wildflower plants. It has been very successful and has a mix of species of grasses and flowers. Unfortunately not sure where it came from as it was done for us as part of some other work to the garden. We strim a path through it and then use a scythe in the autumn to cut back the main area of flowers (which is very satisfying to do! And I'm sure I read somewhere that it is better for the plants than the strimmer)

Wildflower turf is a thing???

I need this in my life

Yes it is! A roll of wildflower plants on a mesh backing. Looked a bit straggly at first but grew in pretty quickly. You need to keep a bit of an eye on the gaps while it is getting established and pull out any interlopers (we get dock leaves and some spread of grass from the neighbouring lawn) but otherwise it has been low maintenance and has taken really well

There is even a Gardeners world article on laying the turf https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/maintain-the-garden/how-to-lay-wildflower-turf/

Am I right in thinking I could do this now?

Is there any evidence beyond what this one Twitter person is saying about his very teeny tiny local area that seems to consist of his garden and a single meadow?? Because tons of aphids and insects here plus dozens of birds making constant noise.

What has been documented is the ongoing avian bird flu pandemic that has decimated birds in the U.K. the past few years, even pushing several Scottish bird species to the brink of extinction.

So whoever was handling those dead chicks was being a bit reckless to do so as it is transmissible to humans. Im not sure how they can conclude they died due to starvation without having done any tests on the chicks.

Dont get the mesh backed ones, get the plastic free variety.

This year seems very good (or bad for insects here) we have an invasion of aphids already, some plants are absolutely covered in greenfly and whitefly. I wish the birds would eat them all for me!

We have plenty of birds; finches, tits, robins, dunnocks, wrens and blackbirds, pigeons, crows, magpies and kites that we see most days.

The swallows are back this year (Cornwall) but I am convinced there are less of them than before.

Re the plastic grass and individual responsibility: yes, plastic grass is awful. But the real culprit in species decline is not the habits of individual gardeners. It's modern agricultural practices. Those lovely farmers in their cute red tractors are fucking killing our biodiversity. 97% of English hay meadows gone since WWII. Hedges levelled or chain flailed into a travesty of what they should be, field margins ploughed up, clouds of pesticide and herbicide, glyphosate on harvested fields as a matter of course, pasture "improved" so that it only grows calorie rich grasses that crowd out the native wildflowers, whole areas of Northern moorland devoid of insects and other invertebrates due to contamination with sheep wormer, streams bubbling with slurry runoff from dairy farms....it goes on and on and fucking on.

There was a recent study in Germany that uncovered a catastrophic decline in insect populations in nature reserves. The problem is that these natural islands don't stand alone- they can't make up for being surrounded by farmland.

@AP5Diva

Don't worry, I run a plastic free garden as much as possible

I would love to feed the birds but I have a cat, next door has two cats, the house behind me has a cat and I see 3 different others at times. So not safe for the birdies

Luckily, I live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields, rivers, dykes and streams. Plenty of food and water for the birds here

There's insects galore in my garden.

Part of the problem is the 'low maintenance' garden. How are starlings supposed to find grubs in the grass if there are no lawns for them? We live in a cul-de-sac of over 30 houses, and only four (including mine) still have grass in the front garden.

I'll give you a positive, heartwarming story to counteract the doom laden post from above:

One of our local farmers farms for nature. He hasn't "improved" any of his fields, for over 20 years, so they are a mass of wildflowers in season (he also cuts late). His land was chosen for a pilot scheme for reintroducing the European field cricket (extinct in the UK) last year. I went down there yesterday and there was a whole chorus of chirping. The crickets have survived and thrived!! Turns out they do really well in an old fashioned traditional meadow, it's just that there are so few of them people forgot.

The other farmers in the area can't see the point of him and what he's doing at all 🙄

So, maybe even more important than feeding the birds is chucking some money at the handful of farmers in the UK who genuinely do farm regeneratively. Eat less meat- but when you do, buy it from someone like this.