Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Robin.

[viques]

I saw your new baby hopping around the garden this morning, only a singleton, but s/he was looking well and healthy.

I am hoping for good news from Mr and Mrs Blackbird soon, but they seem to be a bit slow this year, last week they were still refurbishing the nest. Mrs B is fussy diva and expects a complete overhaul and redecoration every year.

Oh how sweet. How tiny is it. The little wings are just ridiculously cute.
I adore mummy birds.
The way they care for their babies brings a tear to my eyes.
Pass on my congratulations.
Try and get a picture if possible.

No babies, but I have a parakeet in residence! Just emptied the feeder (again), though he/she has to bend practically in half to reach the seeds. Squawking in fury at the cat.

Some of our ducklings

Love this thread. I have parakeet envy!

We hand reared a duckling a few years back. She lived in the bath for a while. Once she'd 'left' us, she remained very tame and would come back every spring with her husband and babies. They'd all march straight into the house as though they'd always been there!

I filled the two seeders again this evening and they're still about two thirds full. I did make them wait until about 7, though. And I'll fill it up before I go to work in the morning. I'm also surprised that there's only about a third of a suet block left. That was put in yesterday.

I ordered them some live mealworms to share with the hens today. They'll probably freak me out, but hopefully the youngsters will enjoy them.

Great thread!
No nests in my garden but I have had blue tits and great tits collect the dog hair I put out for them for nesting material. Have been feeding the birds this year and the word is getting around...so far the regular visitors are 5 wood pigeons, 2 magpies (my faves!), a few collared doves (including a pair that kept mating on my fence), lots of house sparrows (which nest in the mortar of a nearby old building), a pair of dunnocks, a pair of goldfinches, and a couple of very busy blackbirds that collect worms from the lawn. Oh and a couple of grey squirrels and a wood mouse

I ran to tell dh that we had a budgie in our garden but it turned out to be a yellow hammer!
We've got lots of blackbird babies at the moment but also a big sparrow hawk that circles our garden looking for helpless babies. One year it took a sparrow from our bird bath. I can't stand the stress!!

The birdbath has been a huge success this year, the starlings all bath together and we have a wood pigeon that plonks itself in the middle and sees off all the competition. I fill it up twice a day to the brim and then the smaller birds perch on the edge for a drink. Lovely to watch.

Yabu for calling her Mrs
I thought I saw a baby robin in mum's garden today, this makes me think I probably did!

We have weaver birds in our garden. The male builds the nest, and if the female doesn't like it she pulls it to bits, and he has to rebuild it again and again until she is happy.

We are completely 'charmed' with goldfinches this year, more than I have ever seen.
And the long tailed tits seem to be more prevalent as well.

Good job too as I seem to be spending more and more and MORE money on seed, fat balls, Niger and peanuts and the little buggers chuck half of it in the ground for the feeding of Mrs R.A.T and her little ratlings.
I am NOT happy spending all my hard earned in Pets At Home for the benefit of bloody rats, who then get brought in by NorksCat.
So basically, I am spending ££££££ to clear up rat guts.

Something is wrong with this picture

/rant over :)

We have a surrogate single mother hen raising 5 chicks.

Awwwwww for the Ducklings.
The chicks edge it on cutness though.
Look at the way mummy is looking so proudly at them, and The way the 4th chick is looking up at her.

CoolCarrie

When I visit my brother in Africa in their Spring, I watch the Weaver bird build his nest every day, bring his partner every evening to check it out, then shred it when she rejects it and start again the next day.

Fair breaks my heart.

Oh this thread makes me a bit and . My parents lived for 40+ years in a house with an enormous, bird filled garden and every year we watched the birds raising their babies - even Gordon and Gloria the wood pigeons, who tbh, should've been reported to the RSPB because they were shite parents every single year.

Anyways after we lost my dad my mum
Moved at the end of last year and I miss seeing all the birds and I worry about Gordon and Gloria!

Our wood pigeons poo in the bird bath every single day! After sitting on the roof cooing and pooing down the chimney.

I might have to issue them with an ASBO. Our chaffinches were furious and I think they have moved out. I saw them both on the hedge on the drive, looking at each other significantly.

I'm also worried about Mr and Mrs blackbird who live in the hedge outside our bedroom (which is on the ground floor). They have been there for several years so I feel an empathy for them. Some bloody magpie keeps hopping around the hedge and I feel the need to warn Mr and Mrs B about the impending threat to their eggs, but how to do it?

Our wood pigeons are waiting on the top of the bird table every morning at about 6am.

One of them was raised by hand by my ds 3 years ago. He's a bit over familiar.

If we're including domestic birds in this, the funniest time was the year Little Miss Broody sat on an egg for us. The egg hatched, and the cutest little baby emerged. She didn't take easily to motherhood (one of the other, childless, hens thought the wee one would make a good snack, but luckily I managed to rescue it and, after that, Mummy Hen kept a constant eye on her baby,

But this little one was a tad... different. (The flock had reared chicks before - they knew what was expected. It was not this!) When the heavens opened, as it does constantly here, instead of sheltering with the rest of the flock she'd be running around chattering happily to herself, which meant Mummy Hen had to leave the shelter and come out and keep an eye on her. No amount of telling of would induce her baby to come back to her. And then came the day when we put a larger bowl of water out for them, and the Wee One JUMPED IN AND STARTED PADDLING!!!!! There was lots of gossiping among the ladies about this. Such a sight had never been seen before. What did this wee one think she was doing? Funny goings on were suspected.

Eventually the wee one was transferred to the duck pen, where she was welcomed with opened wings, and THAT incident was never mentioned again among the hens, who reckon it was just a case of collective over-imagination, brought on by the unexpected, 24 hour heat wave.

Mr and Mrs Magpie and Brian Magpie have been blessed again this month. We don't ask about Brian but they all seem happy.

Fat old Wayne and Waynetta pigeon are happily shagging and shitting all over my fence yesterday, we're sure to have a few spudjelika's pigeons in the coming weeks - brilliant.

At my old place I had a lovely pair of dunnocks. Kept themselves to themselves, very quiet couple, just very sweet.

When they fledged their chicks, there was another dunnock with them, helping them out- an odd little threesome.

Well. Dunnocks are not quite as quiet as we might think. The man dunnocks inpregnates the lady dunnock, then she will go off and court a single man dunnock, who will also have a go. She'll then flit back to her husband, who will with his beak pluck the other one's seed from her. The single man dunnock then helps them rear the chicks on the off chance they might be his.

It's all true- there was a segment by David Attenborough about it aswell on one of his programmes.

Spider, the funny thing is that none of them is biologically hers. The tragedy is that the real parents were all killed by a fox in the week after laying the eggs. Good old Speckles went broody a few days later so I set some of her departed comrades' eggs, which had been in the kitchen for a few days, underneath her, and 5 out of 6 hatched. So technically they were orphans before they were born. Luckily, broody hens are always happy to raise any chicks and don't seem to notice that they look different.

Ahhh, lovely stories. We have had mallard ducklings rescued from busy road and down a drain with us for the majority of my maternity leave so far - baby is due tomorrow so DP spent yesterday making them an amazing new indoor/ outdoor home to replace the tin bath that has done them proud so far. The picture is from the night they came home, probably 24 hours old. They are growing rapidly at nearly 2 weeks and will be released on the farm where DP works when old enough. The experience has certainly helped with my nesting instincts and it's nice that I'm not the only one waddling round here

Oh Benny that's so sweet.

Gorgeous ducklings, dreams.