to think that if you must feed the birds you should do so in your own garden

[sliceofsoup]

In front of my house there is the road, and then a large grassy area, then more houses.

A lady that lives on my row goes out once a fortnight and dumps a carrier bag full of bread on to the grassy area. All the birds congregate, and of course that means they shit all over every ones cars.

Not to mention the fact that while I am not scared of birds in general, that many at once gives me the heebeejeebees.

I am not irate about this enough to actually say something to her, I am aware that I don't own the place. But AIBU to be a bit at her dumping a carrier bag of bread in the middle of all these houses instead of doing it in her own garden? All these houses have large back yards too so its not like she doesn't have anywhere else to do it.

But birds fly and shit everywhere anyway though?

In theory yes, but in practice no. We hardly ever have bird shit on our car, except after she has fed them.

We have birds in the trees behind our house, and there are the occasional ones flying about, of course. But when the bread goes out there are hundreds in the same space.

Yes see your point op. Not sure what you can do though. Haven't councils intervened in cases like this before?

I don't think there is much I can do really. Maybe if there was a big rodent problem or it was more often the council would be more inclined to care.

The council keeps the grassy area well maintained, we just had new trees planted etc.

You may not have a big rodent problem now, but if she carries son dumping bread on the ground then you will.

How is hergardwn going to be different tho? Assume it's still near you... And your cars

No because she lives about 5 or 6 houses away. These are big 4 bed terraces, with a break in the middle, so if she put the bread in her garden it wouldn't be near us at all, but when she puts it out on the grass she walks up towards our house so its basically in the middle of our house and hers, if that makes sense.

I thought you shouldnt feed birds bread as it swells in their stomach and has no nutritional content for them? Is that incorrect?
I'd call the council and suggest a rat problem caused by it all, they might send someone round, or buy her aBird feeder

Bread is actually bad for birds. It has little to no nutritional value to them and can choke their babies.

Could you go down the 'bread isn't good for them route'? If she swaps for seed instead then you're still stuffed but at least the birds are getting proper food :-/

Oh FFS. So even the birds aren't benefiting from this nonsense. I didn't know that about bread.

I could get DH to talk to the head of the community thingy and ask for a general message to be put on the facebook page and in the newsletter that comes round every month. I have been meaning to get him to say about the people letting their dogs shit on the grass and not picking it up. (Its one person in particular, everyone else picks theirs up.)

I sound like a right busy body don't I?

I think that's a good idea about the news letter, etc, OP.

Our nearest neighbors feed the birds all year round and it encourages loads more birds to be flitting though the garden than there would be otherwise. In the summer i often have to re-wash my line load. Humph.

YANBU and I understand exactly what you mean about so many birds in one place creeping you out a bit. It would me too.

And the rodent worry is a real one. My mum loves to feed the birds and has several tables and feeders in her garden where she puts seeds and fat balls etc. For a while she also put scraps on the ground beside the tables - until a rat was spotted and that practice got stopped very quickly.