Please put some water out 🙏

[kinkytoes]

Hi all, with the heatwave this weekend please can you put some water out in shallow bowls so the animals, birds and insects can get a drink.

Keep refilling so the water doesn't go bad.

If you have a pond, make sure escape routes are in place.

Thank you!

Just loving all these birdy stories!

Thanks to everyone putting water out 🫶🫶

After reading this and watching the blue tits in next door’s luxury birdbath/feeding hotel setup, I’ve put a number of shallow dishes out today in various areas of the garden and topped them all up this evening.

The posh-birds can still relax in next door’s spa, but there’s room for a few more in mine now!

Quite fancy getting a bird bath after hearing all these stories. Dh said I’m getting old 😂 He’s probably right.

One of the best things about being older is growing to appreciate the birds in the garden!!

Slightly off topic but on the theme of grubby pigeons, one once flew into our living room window. It bounced off unharmed, but left a rather spooky Turin shroud-style imprint of a pigeon with wings fully outstretched detailed on the window in dust/oil.

I only had a small shallow cat food dish but I’ve filled that yesterday

I've bought some of the big shallow doormat tray things from Ikea for water as they a decent size but shallow. Had lots of wildlife this week including hedgehogs, badgers and a fox

I read that a paint tray (for decorating) can be a useful hedgehog drinking station. If you dig it into the ground a little then they can wander in and out. I'm going to try it.

Wow, incredible to have all three of those! Water in a drought really brings in the wildlife, doesn't it?

I think it's because we're rural and have made a real effort to plant a garden that's very wildlife friendly. When we moved in the house was surrounded by nothing but intensely farmed and sprayed fields and tightly cut hedges. We saw the odd pigeon or seagull but not much else. Although we don't have a lot of land over the last couple of years we've left some to go wild, reintroduced meadow grasses and flowers and replaced the hedges around the garden with bird friendly fruit bearing traditional species and not cut them. In extremes of weather the wildlife comes here because there's shelter and water, although we try not to make them dependent on us. I can't describe how happy it makes me to see the hazelnut shells left by a dormouse, or find a hedgehog shuffling about.

I have four lots of water out all year round. The biggest is a large terracotta dish that I have to refill about six times a day as the starlings are in it all the time. Sometimes there is as many as six of them all trying to bath, squabbling and shrieking as they try to stop any more joining them.

The poor little birds have to wait till they all fly off to have a chance of getting in there.

I love watching them and all the water they splash about waters some of my plants that are around the bird bath.

A couple of years ago my classroom was an upstairs corner one and we regularly had pigeons flying smack bang into the window! They left a sort of greasy dusty circle, it was fascinating. And the smeary mark stayed for ages as I think the window cleaners only came once a term 😂

I've had a bowl outside for years, mainly for my cats. I've always wondered what's drinking it though as I have to fill it every morning. I do back onto fields, I'd love to get a trail camera just to see!

I forgot to do this until yesterday. I happened to see the little birds going mad to get into the side of the plant tray that was full of water. They were hilarious all fighting for a bit of water around the edge of the tray.

So last night I put out another large tray on its own, not much water gone so we'll see what happens today. It is in full view on the patio so being a newby to this, should I put it against a wall or where's best?

😂

Yesterday evening I was in the lounge and looking out into the garden and there were seven starlings in the bird bath, flapping and squabbling. As one flew off, another came down from the fence and got in the water.

At one point the fence panel above the bird bath had about 20 starlings on it, all waiting to get in. I now have babies joining in, from only one baby until yesterday, I've seen around half a dozen since then.

I'm going to be working overtime to keep the water topped up for them. 🕊😆

Nobody ever regrets getting a trail camera 😉

Out in the open is best so the birds have a clear view of any predators. Some shrubbery somewhere nearby is useful for them to fly to and from for easy shelter.

We've got bowls in different places @fantam and they're all busy. The two that get most use are one under a shrub, so lots of cover and one out in the open on a step but, as @kinkytoes said, near some greenery for safety.

I don't think you can go wrong really.

@Thatsanotherfinemess1 Totally agree about the hedgehogs. I was sitting on my garden bench late yesterday evening and a hedgehog wandered happily by. I'd never seen one so close before and was surprised how agile he was.

Hedgehogs are really zippy when they want to be. I think their body is smaller and other than you think under their spikes.

And now I'm thinking how weird it is that an animal has spikes. I get freaked out by flamingoes and giraffes too 😂.

*smaller than you think

i have a dish
the sparrows are very keen drinkers

I was watching a great tit having a bath in one of my bird baths on the ground when a cat came out of nowhere (in my sight line) and grabbed it in its mouth and ran off, looking over its shoulder at me as I yelled out and banged on the window. It was so quick, I really hope the bird knew nothing about it and was killed instantly.

I know it's what cats do but to be watching a perfect wee bird enjoying a bath being wiped out in an instant was shocking. I hope if it had young in a nest the other parent is able to manage.

I have put boulders round the bath with gaps for hedgehogs in the hope that it will make such quick access for cats less easy.