outdoors shite - I saw the first flight of cranes of the year!

[FryingNemo]

Amazing. I heard them first and then saw them - I reckon there was about 100 of them so not a big flight but a wonderful sight nonetheless. Spring is on its way.

:)

No birdy excitement here, but the pond is completely full of frogspawn.

Spawn watch is worthy of a thread all of its own Stropperella.

We're still too cold for frogs spawn but I'm hoping we'll see some next week.

The spawn mound has doubled in size since yesterday..

There's something about mounds of frogspawn that makes me all ick. There was a pond in our garden at some point in the past and the bloody frogs still come and lay their spawn on the garden. Ugh. Actually that might explain why the puppy has been sick the last two days...

< sings 'we shall overcome'>

We have goldfinches, green finches , siskins, bull finches, all four tits (fnerrr), sparrows, robins and squirrels as well as woodpeckers on the feeder today.
Blackbirds and wrens and pheasants underneath it.

I love the bird feeders . Does that make me VERY gimmery?

I take your finches and raise you one red squirrel and a wood marten that shits on my windowsills...

I take your finches and raise you one red squirrel and a wood marten that shits on my windowsills...

And yes, extremely gimmery.

Join the club.

Despite doing my absolute best on the bird-feeding front, I can only report seeing a large number of sparrows, a couple of bluetits, my-friends-the-blackbirds-wot-I-have-known-since-they-were-chicks, doves, pigeons and too many herring gulls. Although there was also an unfortunate visit from a sparrow hawk.

I love bullfinches, they are beautiful. I had a myriad (can I say that) of feeders until I came home one day and realised the cute squirrel sitting underneath snaffling all the dropped seeds had a rather longer, scalier, tail than you would expect. I've gone right off bird feeders now.

i saw my 1st ever RL bullfinch yesterday!

but at one given time there were 8 red kites in full flight - they're a sight to behold

i'm envious at cranes but have geese flying over the house every morning - my own hokning alarm clock

Yorkshire terriers repel all scaly-tailed squirrels. They are EXCELLENT ratters.

If you wish for finches, be they bull, green or gold, you need NYGER seed. It's the mutt's nuts in finch-land.

I LOVE THIS TOPIC!

Yorkshire Terriers do not HAVE any nuts. They are girls

Oooh, ooh, and an OSPREY ( not on the feeder, on a tree looking modest, white underwings though...)

Now I know this is a very small thing compared to 100 cranes but I heard a blackbird singing its heart out earlier and I was filled with the joys of spring! Surely it's the happiest sound on Earth?

millions of finches in the garden. and i heard skylarks yesterday. lovely.

I have a JRT x working Lakeland. There are no rats in our garden any more. But sadly the dog also exterminates all other wildlife, if allowed. He once fetched a slow sparrow out of a bush and ate it whole. Then spat out the beak. Oops.

I have a whippet. Is this any good at getting rid of scaly tailed squirrels? So far he is fairly pants with cats so I don't hold out much hope. I would love to get my feeders out again (ooer) and tempt back all the finches.

I agree, a blackbird in full song is one of the best sounds in the world.

I had a white starling coming to my feeders last spring (and about 50 ordinary ones)
Starling shit is very difficult to clean off paving stones....

Our westie x bichon watched the cat playing with a live baby rat scaley tailed squirrel for about ten minutes, then she just walked up to it and shook it once. Dead STS.
It was exactly as if she couldn't understand why the cat was being so inefficient

at white starling. I want one!

We also got scaly tailed squirrels from having bird feeders. Our terrier x whippet got one, but then they GOT UNDER THE HOUSE so the nice local rat man was called.

Now we think ten one has died under the floorboards ...

Woodpecker here too, plus thrush that thinks its a car alarm

v jealous of cranes! The birds around us have definitely declared spring-and we have blossom, snow drops and crocuses (south coast) :)

Do squirrels mate now? They seem to be running around the trees like thy are playing kiss chase

We have field mice and bank voles but never seen an STS. Perhaps our dachshund scares them off. And most cats, they've not realised he's a coward. Our last dog used to scare off any bird blackbird sized or larger but the current one shares the garden begninly even with corvids and pheasants - once he's had a good chew on a bone he doesn't mind birds having a peck (blackbirds will stick their heads into a good-sized marrow bone to get the marrow beyond the dog's reach).

I was at work all day today so missed any further fly overs. Perhaps I will see / hear some more tomorrow.

I no longer have a bird feeder although it did attract some lovely finches. I now just cut out the middle man and feed the neighbour's cat directly...