Where have all our garden birds gone?

[PhilJ W]

Just had a similar situation with red grapes.

One white sheet ruined by blackbirds. A mixture of grape juice and bird ######.

One very upset SWMBO.

Bernard

Its when the Elderberry trees are on someone else's property that it gets annoying.

[dhjgreen]

We have a juvenile dunnock visiting us, it is a pretty scruffy youth actually.  It is very tame and will come within a couple of feet of us to take seed which it then eats on a nearby branch.

 

When he? has finished eating he sings quietly in the same tree.  Maybe he is practising as it is not the normal dunnock song, maybe he does not want the other dunnocks to hear him if he sings a wrong note

[DDolfelin]

Not a bird but at least it has wings:

moth.jpg

 

Can anybody positively Identify it?

 

Looks like a type of Hawk Moth to me but I'm not too good on Moth recognition!

It's about 5cm across the wings and the body is about 3cm long

 

Cheers

 

Keith

 

Could be a Red Underwing.

[DDolfelin]

They'll be out in the fields where foodstuffs are plenty this time of year, They're seed eaters and lots of plants will be going to seed at this time.

 

That would be the obvious explanation but there is a bit more to it.

The mature sparrows have since returned - about ten of them - but this years youngsters are somewhere else.

Maybe it's some form of natural dispersal.

[lightengine]

Big to-do going on in bramble/ivy bush next door as we got home. We went towards it and a kestrel flew out.

Edited September 3, 2017 by lightengine

[MinZaPint]

An occasional visitor returned today

 

  

 

Taken through a window so not as clear as I would like, a few minutes later it's Greater Spotted cousin was on the Coconut feeder.

[dhjgreen]

An occasional visitor returned today

 

  DSC00401.JPG

 

Taken through a window so not as clear as I would like, a few minutes later it's Greater Spotted cousin was on the Coconut feeder.

Birder envy.

[runs as required]

Helpful advice needed !

We have a sort of narrow indoor/outdoor double height space across the back of our old stone house. It has a transparent polycarb  roof (with no openings) and is lined on either wall with mature indoor/outdoor plants.

Trouble is a gawky adolescent (teenage spots) Robin is intent on making this vertical slot its territory. It just sits waiting for the garden door to open onto our outdoor table and slips happily between us inside while we are carrying our snack/lunch/tea out.

The little bird is extremely reluctant to be coaxed out over and over again.

 

All that would be fine except that wife has a  new child  5 month old cat banging on the adjacent kitchen door going wild with determination to rid us of the bird.

dh

[Phil Bullock]

Havent fed our feathered friends over the last month as nothing much around

 

Restocked the feeders yesterday so today...

 

A party of 20 tits - blue, coal and long tailed - taking turns on the feeder. A very pleasant 15 minutes watching their antics.

 

Phil

[Liam]

I'm quite keen on ornithology as well as model railways. I've been away for a while but before I left the resident robin was visiting, in addition to some dunnocks and blackbirds.

 

The blue tits started making a nest in the nestbox but after a few weeks abandoned it - we still don't know where they went and why.

 

And whilst not a garden bird exactly, the house martins are being kept extremely busy in their nest under the eaves!

[The Blue Streak]

Hasn't been too much for the last few months apart from the usual doves and the odd pink and grey galah, even the Zebra Finches have only appeared in handfuls.

But Spring has sprung and the sun is out and the birds are starting to reappear.

 

Today I heard a screeching and was surprised to see a fairly decent sized Hawk or similiar at the top of the tree at the end of My Block I've never seen one like it before .

 

Then I looked at the branch below and saw two more with slightly different plumage. They all flew off together and circled around for ages together so they are obviously a family group. Perhaps parents with a young one or one parent with two Juves, I'm unsure. But it was quite a nice surprise.

 

Edit - They are (I think) Black shouldered Kites, the Juves have the Brown on their Heads and Chests, the Adults have more white. Which makes sense because the two on the lower branch seemed a bit oblivious and the one higher up was watching like (Ahem) a Hawk .

The other Adult is also around now, I think they are teaching the younger ones to hunt by diving into the longer grass in the empty paddock next door and at the end of my block.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2017 by The Blue Streak

[chris p bacon]

Helpful advice needed !

We have a sort of narrow indoor/outdoor double height space across the back of our old stone house. It has a transparent polycarb  roof (with no openings) and is lined on either wall with mature indoor/outdoor plants.

Trouble is a gawky adolescent (teenage spots) Robin is intent on making this vertical slot its territory. It just sits waiting for the garden door to open onto our outdoor table and slips happily between us inside while we are carrying our snack/lunch/tea out.

The little bird is extremely reluctant to be coaxed out over and over again.

 

All that would be fine except that wife has a  new child  5 month old cat banging on the adjacent kitchen door going wild with determination to rid us of the bird.

dh

 

There's a really easy answer to this one.

 

Get rid of the cat.........

[The Blue Streak]

At the opposite end of the spectrum to the Kites

We had this pair of wild ducks wandering around.

 

[The Blue Streak]

It looks like the Kites are going to hang around for a bit, they seem to like the bare branches at the top of the tallest tree on My Block.

It makes me wonder who's watching who ?

(Sorry the Photos a bit grainy but it's a big tree and I had to use a lot of Zoom)

 

[runs as required]

There's a really easy answer to this one.

Get rid of the cat.........

Easier said than done alas.

Getting rid of the cat involves getting rid of faithful old wife as well.

After which there'd be absolutely no justification whatever for staying on in this great gaunt cold pile of stones.

 

I'd have to emigrate to a studio flat somewhere in the central Med...mmm

 dh

[shortliner]

Driving down the A9 alongside the Cromarty Firth this morning, we saw a field full of Geese, pecking about amongst the stubble - The "H O N K I E S" seem to be back very early this year - I wonder if it is a sign that "Winter is coming!" and a bad, early one at that!

Edited September 6, 2017 by shortliner

[MinZaPint]

On the Lawn a moment ago, a Cuckoo in the nest?

 

 

From the Dove family I guess but not in my book, any ideas?

[petethemole]

Common city pigeons AKA flying rats; their true species is Rock Dove. Descended from doves kept in dovecotes for food from the Norman period onward. Urban buildings replicate their natural habitat of ledges and holes on rock faces.

[The Blue Streak]

Well there's certainly been an interesting mix of birds this week - Spring has most certainly sprung.

 

I've never been at home much at this time of year normally, either at work or sleeping after nightshifts.

 

As such there's plenty of birds been hanging around that I normally don't see a lot of. In addition to the usual galahs, finches and Twenty Eight's that I have posted a lot of pics of, there were the Wild Ducks and Kites that turned up earlier in the week.

 

Today these turned up, 5 or 6 Black Cockatoos, they were white tailed variety but I can't tell the difference between the ultra rare Carnaby's or the more common Baudins. Either way it's a bit of a treat. I've seen them fly over occasionally but they've never actually stopped off in or near my block. The local Nyoongah people call them Rain Birds because they say it rains within a day or so of their appearance.

 

( again, I'm sorry about the carp quality, I really must buy a better camera - this ones at least 11 years old)

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by The Blue Streak

[MinZaPint]

Common city pigeons AKA flying rats; their true species is Rock Dove. Descended from doves kept in dovecotes for food from the Norman period onward. Urban buildings replicate their natural habitat of ledges and holes on rock faces.

Thank you for that, a neighbour used to have a dovecote and we had assumed something of the sort.

 

Cheers David

[shortliner]

On the Lawn a moment ago, a Cuckoo in the nest?

 

DSC00405.JPG

 

From the Dove family I guess but not in my book, any ideas?

We have several "Fat Alberts" (wood pigeons), that always remind me of C-130s taxying about on the patio, and this year there ha been an explosion of collared doves that seem to have taken over the local street lamps

from the rooks, crows, and jackdaws at the moment

Edited September 8, 2017 by shortliner

[MinZaPint]

I've seen this fella around several times, but he's very nervous, I've only just managed to get a pic from an upstairs window

 

 

a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.

[The Blue Streak]

After multiple near misses, I finally managed to get a snap of one of our resident pair of Kookaburras (which as you chaps are probably aware of, is a large kind of Kingfisher that likes to eat snakes and such). So here he/she is on the Power pole across the road.

 

Edited September 26, 2017 by The Blue Streak

[jbqfc]

the new feeder have now been up a month and we one regular visitor in the shape of a robin

[chris p bacon]

the new feeder have now been up a month and we one regular visitor in the shape of a robin

 

Surely thats all you need for entertainment.  (I can watch Robins for ages)