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[CLKD]

I spent over £1,000 last year on live worms 

[Bckquine]

Our birds absolutely love the fat balls (they only last a day) but hardly touch the wild bird seed, although they will take the peanuts when I put them out!  Do different species eat different things?  And we do have a few seagulls squacking and screeching on the roofs, so not sure if that puts the little birds off.

[CLKD]

Yep birds feed on different types of food in the wild, looking at their beaks tell us which 'types' they go for.  Here I haven't bought peanuts for a couple of years 'cos they stopped bothering and nuts went grey in the feeders.   Nothing takes niger seed, yet 5 doors 'up' the road she feeds goldfinches by the dozen!  We don't have as many starlings this year so the fat balls hang ....... although there are a few sparrows on them this morning.  Blackbird, thrush and robins are all at the meal worms; as were the pied wagtails in the depths of Winter, those have gone haven't seen one for 5 weeks.

Birds have learnt to adapt in order to survive.

[Bckquine]

Our seagulls have definately learnt to adapt, terrorise the humans and nick their food, woo hoo, we can survive without having to go anywhere near the water if we don't want to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  They are the only birds I do not like, would shoot the buggers if it was legal, they are such pests and the noise they make is horrendous, especially when the young are about!

[CLKD]

THeir poo is difficult to clean off too 

I went into our village shop recently and asked the Very Young Man where his fat balls were ....... "do you have fat balls for sale" I think were my words ....... followed by  [me] and a Large Grin from him 

[viv]

We have signs up all over our seaside town asking people not to feed the gulls. Needless to say they ignore the advice. The gulls line up outside the chippy and ice cream shops and swoop in for the kill. They will even go after little ones in prams. They are absolute monsters who are far better out at sea.
People sit and throw them scraps and then complain when they attack. Its an ongoing problem in a lot of towns and there is no easy answer.

Viv
x

[Bckquine]

Yeh, I know viv, saw a grown man chased up the street by a gull attacking him because its baby (who was the size of an albatross, lol) was on the ground near where he was walking!  One of my neighbours feeds them even though everyone tells her she is a fool, but some folk just will not listen, what can you do?

[Taz2]

I agree that gulls are a nuisance but a lot of this is our own fault. We leave rubbish around from takeaways etc. and they are such excellent scavengers. We have overfished the oceans so it is obvious that the gull will move in to our space. I was amazed to find that the Herring Gull is on the red list as endangered.

Viv - I reckon the gulls think it is us who should leave them and their breeding grounds alone not the other way round - gulls have never lived out at sea. It is so hard to get a balance between our needs and the needs of wildlife and I'm not sure what the answer is. http://video.stv.tv/bc/stv-news-090723-n2-gulls/

Taz x 

[viv]

I guess I agree Taz. We do get in natures way sometimes. People really dont help though. I live on the seafront and I see so many people feeding the gulls. They then complain when the same gulls (i think) pinch the ice cream out of the kids hands. The same gulls lol  then come and poo on my windows.

I do like watching them though, they are the most persistent birds that I have ever seen.

Viv

[Taz2]

That's lovely Kmg. They love peanuts as long as they are in a holder so that adult birds can't feed a whole nut to a chick, but their favourite is.... and you won't like this..... young nestlings! They are very good at making nest box holes big enough to get in and steal the baby bluetits which is why all good bird boxes have a metal plate behind the hole.  They are lovely to watch though  More info here  http://www.bto.org/nnbw/nesting_birds/great_spotted_wood.htm

Taz x

[CLKD]

Taz is back, Taz is back 

we have been out most of the weekend so haven't seen much of our birds here ..... lovely weather is due to continue I understand!

[Taz2]

I reckon that normally the bluetits actually shred the wool before using it. It may be a good idea to put short strands out not a huge amount. Perhaps you could tie a few short strands together at the top and then hang it from a bush or tree. This means the birds can tease out what they want. You might like to read this site http://www.bto.org/nbc/bluetitblog.htm  We haven't actually got any nest boxes in our garden due to the large numbers of cats (I am known as "the cat woman" locally as so many tend to drift in and out of my house) but in the last school I worked in they set up a webcam in the nextbox - it was fantastic to watch them all developing. There were 11 fledged from our box out of a total of 14.

Taz x

[CLKD]

I put a wad of cotton wool out at the weekend.  They can pick bits off if they want, it's in a dry spot in the garden.  The blue tits are using the sparrow 'hotel' which Hubby put up 3 years ago.  Great tits are close by I can hear the young when they go into feed but haven't located the nest yet ....... am awaiting live meal worms as I write, the birds have eaten me out of house and home!

[CLKD]

I've spent 2 hours in the garden pulling up grass which has germinated from the wild bird seed, it goes into the chickens' run so it's wasted.  I ache and my hands are grubby but its' been good 

[Meggie]

We're a little concerned about our chickens - from 6 birds we've been getting 5 eggs a day but production has dropped to 2 which is strange.  Can't see why.  They are only around 24 weeks old so probably not yet into an established pattern but this drop has happened twice in the past week.  Are we giving them too much in the way of "extra's" I wonder?

Meggie