Dead birds

[WhattheFishappening]

Our garden has quite a few large shrubs, bushes and densely planted areas, different areas on different levels so not just flat grass and borders if you see what I mean.

It seems to be a garden where birds go to die or be killed and I can’t cope with it.

AIBU to think this is not normal or does everyone have this problem?

Every time I go out I find another dead bird.

We don’t have cats but neighbours do.

I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to birds. Actually, more than I bit. I hate them & can’t go near them.
It’s a problem I’ve had for as long as I can remember so I’m wondering if the fact that we have dead birds in our garden regularly bothers me more because of this.

What I want to know is:
Is it normal to have weekly bird deaths in your garden? Does this happen to everyone?

I loathe birds too, OP. Flying rodents, the lot of them. Lots of diseases are transmitable via birds too. Horrid, fecky, flappy things. I couldn’t touch one if you paid me. Meanwhile, I suspect unless you’re hearing the death knell at the same time every day, you need the motion sensor-activated sprinkler. Or you could go out with a jet blaster water gun thing and pretend you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger. Might help with the phobia.

Could you get a bird table to the birds arent on the ground and less likely to be pounced on by a cat or some of those things that twirl around in the wind so the birds keep a look out for movement

rosiejaune posted: "Clearing the undergrowth would only solve the issue in the sense of removing the birds' habitat and feeding place; we need to plant more vegetation, not chop it down!

I now see this area as the cat’s ‘stake-out bunker’ rather than a safe bird’s habitat.
You may need to plant more vegetation in your garden rosie but I can safely say that even if we cleared this particular area there are plenty more trees and bushes here for birds to be attacked and die under.

Ffs spoke too soon - just enjoying my morning cuppa and spotted a dead blackbird in the lavender. Pesky cat.

Fishfingersandwichplease

Have you cleared it? I have just crept out to see if it’s still there (not sure where I expected it to have gone).
I have shown ‘the bird feeder’ DH who is now irrationally angry at every neighbourhood cat.
He’s going to ‘help me’ clear the area ‘later’.
I’m now irrationally angry with him, the cats and the birds.

So much disharmony at our house at the moment

No, it is still there, l have to psyche myself up to clear it!! DH hasn't spotted it yet, he isn't our cat's biggest fan at the best of times, this always tips him over the edge!!

fishfinger
You have my sympathies.

‘Sympathy’ !

It will be the cats. I do like cats, but it’s incredibly detrimental to the local bird and small wildlife population to keep them as pets. Our neighbour’s cat is an absolute murder machine and he got a fluffy baby blue tit and left it in our garden recently; unfortunately my young children found it and were sobbing for ages

The owner professes to be a huge animal lover and says it would be cruel to try and stop him (bells etc). But it’s not cruel to the birds and small animals he kills, despite being well fed? She says it’s not natural. But how is the life of a house cat natural in any other way?

I wish there were an easy solution that would please everyone.

We often find dead birds In our garden, we have 4 sets of French doors, they fly into the glass, leaving a bird shaped smudge in the window.

Alwayscheerful
This maybe where it stems from for me.
We had large single glass french doors in the house I grew up in and my Mum liked to have them open.
If they weren’t flying into the house they were flying into and believe it or not, through the glass.
There was a particularly terrifying event when a pigeon did this whilst we were out and it was carnage.
Other birds in the house events were nearly as awful.
I don’t think I have ever recovered! 😂

I wish there were an easy solution that would please everyone.
Me too!

This is a particularly risky time of year for birds. Fledglings drop to the ground as their parents teach them to hunt on the ground d for bugs, and I read that fledglings can spend a few days on the ground before they're ready to fly. This makes them targets for cats, sadly. I've rescued a few at this time of year, but hopefully will settle down once they learn to fly and get a bit more cat savvy.

@MyCarHasBrokenDownAgain

OP, my friends cat could easily cause the amount of dead birds you're describing, she's lethal. She's tried everything - so many bells at one point I wondered how puss could even lift her head. This is the latest idea - and, touch wood, it seems to be working: www.birdsbesafe.com/ Doesn't help you I know, but if you do find the cat/owner could be something to suggest.

My cats would kill me if I made them wear that. 😂😂

OP, now you've shared that story re the French windows and the things that happened, it's not surprising that you've developed a phobia about birds. When birds end up inside a building they tend to panic and fly into walls, etc, they are very unpredictable and it is unnerving. Do what you have to, to make part of your garden more light and open, you might reduce the bird casualties a bit and any corpses will be easy to spot at a distance, rather than catch you by surprise. The unpredictability of the situation probably adds to your anxiety - I think you need to take control a little. Also, if any of the birds are nesting in trees in your own garden, you might want to think about pruning them back or even removing those trees in the autumn, because obviously this may keep happening every spring.

(Some people seem to have a view that all trees are sacred, no matter where they are or what impact they are having on any nearby humans. I don't share that view, but if OP is concerned she could donate to some sort of woodland trust charity, who will plant more trees to offset the loss to the environment.)

Bird tables and perches are lovely, but will make your garden more appealing to the birds, and in turn the cats, who will be mesmerised watxhing the birds come and go. Years ago our neighbour put a bird table up close to the boundary wall. Our cat was delighted, he thought it was a gift for him, and sat on the wall stalkimg the birds for hours.

@WhattheFishappening and other bird-phobics, CBT helped my bird phobia massively.

I thought I might have to give up driving, because the urge to duck and/or shut my eyes when a pigeon or seagull flew towards my windscreen was becoming harder and harder to resist. Town centres were a nightmare because of pigeons and I couldn't go to my nearest Sainsburys as it's very near the coast.

My GP was really understanding and referred me to MH services. Six sessions of CBT later, and I can just take a deep breath and look the other way when there are pigeons eating dropped crap on the pavement, instead of freezing and panicking.

I recommend it.

Never had any before but we've had the remains of two different birds in the garden during lockdown, courtesy of a cat from down the road. We had some old fence panels in the garden and the cat had taken to dozing in their shade when we had the really hot weather. Must have been a great spot to catch unsuspecting birds from!

We're having a lot of bird strikes on our windows.

Thankfully DH isn't squeamish and has been dealing with the bodies. Latest one was a fledgling sparrow tonight. It was a pigeon a couple of days ago.

He knows I hate birds and especially dead ones. In his wisdom he decided to explain the poor sparrows demise of a massive head injury.

We seem to have a visiting sparrowhawk so not sure if there is a correlation.

Very fond of robins but had a robin killed by another robin a week or so ago that was a 'dead bird in garden' morning. They had both been 'around' in the territory for some time, seemingly without clashes, but I clearly hadn't seen the battle coming.

I have been living here many years now, my garden is densely planted and a favourite hang out for all the neighbourhood cats, I have a bird feeder next to my cats favourite sitting spot and regularly see a variety of birds.
In all the years I have lived here I have found one dead bird, One dead bat and rescued 2 mice.
That’s it.