Watching birds (and other wildlife) in the garden

[FleetwoodRaincoat]

Not sure if this is the right place to post but I couldn't see a wildlife thread anywhere.

I've been really enjoying watching birds in our garden over the past year. I've put up several feeders, a bird box, built a little wildlife pond etc.

For the past few days I've been watching a pair of blue tits going in and out of the nest box. At the moment they seem to be going in then throwing stuff out, rather than building a nest.

Anyone else interested in what's going on in their garden?

Ooh, lovely thread! I've picked up a few ideas from it.

@MereDintofPandiculation the magpies take the blackbird babies too, I spend half my summer fending them off. Mr &Mrs blackbird send out the alarm call and I run out to help. It got to the point I didn't like going out, so I've had to take a step back this year.

Last year we had a near miss between a blue tit nest and a blackbird nest. Both parent birds flew out at high speed and crossed, much to their shock. This year, neither nest has been used so far, although the blue tits have been investigating so may still.

Did you know the ridiculous coloured, ornamental bird houses actually get used? I was given one and hung it as an ornament and was shocked to find birds quite happy to nest in it! So I bought another....

I don't get much variety of bird- I bought a Niger feeder and seed, but no one seems interested.

The fat balls interest only the magpie.

The blue tits seem keen on the mixed seed- I actually mix all sorts in, whatever seed I buy with extra mealworms, sunflower hearts, raisins and so on. They seem quite keen.

I also sprinkle on the floor in different locations. I know I've a field mouse, and the wren seems to prefer the floor, too.

I've got a Robin nesting for the first time this year.

My husband laughs. We seem to have 'acquired' all sorts of 'older person' hobbies. He's eyeing up golf. It's very strange how your interests shift as you age. I wonder if it's a life stage thing? I'd never have had time to notice birds when I had younger children, and I think their noise in the garden would have put birds off!

We are very lucky with the wildlife in our garden and feed the foxes, hedgehogs and birds. It is really interesting to recognise the behaviours after a few years of watching. We know virtually to the day when the vixens gave birth and when we might expect to see cubs, how aggressive some hedgehogs can be, and, one day, we fully expect to have a robin eating out of our hands. We’ve also noticed an increase in types of birds. Maybe they were always there but we’ve only just noticed and they are more transitory visitors. Latest arrival was a female pheasant which was a surprise as we live in a small town (next to a park admittedly).

Sat in a friend's garden yesterday morning watching some dunnocks going in and out of a dense bush.
They were nest building 4 weeks ago so I assume they are now feeding?
I say 'some' because there were definitely at least 3 building the nest, but to us they all look exactly the same so we can't tell how many are now involved.
A knowledgeable person told us dunnocks are quite promiscuous but the males who might be the father put in the proportion of effort to the nest and feeding that matches their likelihood of being the parent. Ii like that idea, but as we can't distinguish them, we can't check if that is true in this case.
Does anyone know about dunnocks?

the magpies take the blackbird babies too, I spend half my summer fending them off. The blackbird adults take the newts. DH spends his summers watching the ponds and chasing blackbirds to get them to drop the newts.

I wonder if it's a life stage thing? I find the more I know about a subject, the more questions there are still to answer. So it might be a life stage thing, in that it takes a number of years to pick up enough scraps of knowledge for things to become interesting. Or maybe it's simply(wild generalisation) that when you're young you're looking for the big thrills and when you're older you take time to look at the details.

Dunnock

Yes, I know it's all part of life's cycle etc. I don't have newts to worry about!

The knowledge thing you raise, my eye is 'in', in ways it wasn't before and that's definitely a process of education. I can zero in on details now so much faster than before. Still nowhere near fast enough, mind, but definitely better than before. I'm hoping to progress onto recognising the different songs at some point, but I'm a long way off that!

An obliging and enormous crow appears to have sorted out our magpie problem.

Glad to see this thread is still going! Lovely to hear everyone's stories.

I'm currently glued to my footage of hedgehogs every morning. We have 3, maybe 4 that visit, so there's fighting, mating rituals and lots of general shenanigans.

I've also got a small wildlife pond with some frogspawn in, so I'm checking every day to see if they're proper tadpoles yet!

Spent today making a toad house, in the hope of enticing one in

I've been carefully not clearing everything up, in the hopes all the leaf litter appeals to creatures. I'm wondering about a hedgehog door. My garden is fully enclosed. I don't know if a hedgehog would even find the door!

@picklemewalnuts if you provide some dry cat biscuits and water they may well appear. We only had one visit after we got a cat and left her food outside. Good luck!

The great tits are teasing me they are showing alot of interest in the bird box and scoot in and out but never seem to spend very long. Seen one leaving with something in it's beak. Any idea what it was doing? The sparrows are making good use of the sheeps wool I put in the bushes so very pleased with that 😀

@picklemewalnuts

Yes, I know it's all part of life's cycle etc. I don't have newts to worry about!

The knowledge thing you raise, my eye is 'in', in ways it wasn't before and that's definitely a process of education. I can zero in on details now so much faster than before. Still nowhere near fast enough, mind, but definitely better than before. I'm hoping to progress onto recognising the different songs at some point, but I'm a long way off that!

If you talk to a “birder” they do the bulk of their id by song. I don’t think I’ve a chance. In the garden I can recognise blackbird, robin, goldfinch, sparrow, long tailed tit, great tit, bull finch, and that’s about it. In the wider countryside I don’t have a chance

I have an app on my phone called by birdnet that identifies birdsong

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.tu_chemnitz.mi.kahst.birdnet&hl=en_GB&gl=US
Its not perfect but usually right on the birds i can see, but i suspect the other ones are up in the tree and we cant see

My one tip if you want to build a relationship with your birds is MEALWORMS.
I feed the birds all year but give them mealworms too through the breeding season and I now have a very tame blackbird and robin. I go outside and whistle , and either or both will swoop over to me. If I am pottering about the blackbird will come and sit next to me, literally a few inches away. He has been here for years and knows me well, it is lovely.
I had a robin that would eat from my hand but he died last year, there is another friendly one but not yet quite as tame as that.

Sirvix do you just add them to the food, or scatter them only when you are out there?

I've just seen the flash of colours as a goldfinch flew off an apple tree.
We hear owls here at night and woodpeckers in the day, see buzzards overhead, and get visits from a hedgehog, shrews, weasels, and slow worms.

SirVix How often do you feed the mealworms? We scatter a handful once a week when filling up the feeding station. I’ve been doing a lot of gardening and usually have a robin keeping me company. We have at least 2 pairs in the garden. The feeding station appears to be neutral ground.

Robins also love mealworm. I put some out twice a week

I got my first robin visitor this morning!

No garden sadly but after several attempts over the years I’ve finally been having a steady stream of blue tits and great tits to my window feeders over the last few months.

Last week I decided to buy dried mealworms (I soak them first as recommended by the rspb website) to add to their diet of sunflower hearts and suet pellets and to my surprise the robin turned up.

I love watching them it’s so relaxing.

I started by scattering a few mealworms in a specific place when I could that the robin was about. Gradually the blackbird noticed that when I appeared food appeared too, and now if I whistle the birds will fly straight to me if they are fairly close by.
I sometimes use a hanging mealworm feeding dish too. The blackbird followed me inside the other day and got into a panic but he was fine once he worked out how to get back into the garden.
I get mealworms from Haiths or CJ Birdfoods.

Ark wildlife is another good supplier and usually cheaper than CJ

These little trays are good for the ground feeders- just snapped a photo of ours in use. We put it away each night so any leftover seed doesn’t attract rats.

B&M is good for some bird bits, I get their boxes of suet pellets 12.6kg for £7.99 and big tubs of mealworms are about £5. Sainsbury’s seems to be the cheapest place for sunflower hearts at the moment, all the big bulk buy bags have had a big price increase so I’ve just been adding the small bags from there to my weekly shop.

Spotted two coal tits perched sideways on my new roses eating the aphids. I've been desperately hoping some ladybird would arrive but guess I don't need to worry anymore.

They love mealworms but go easy on them because they end up eating nothing else and becoming calcium depleted.