Where have all our garden birds gone?

[DDolfelin]

For the last month, our normally heavily populated bird feeders have been almost deserted.

As we are very rural, we usually get a wide variety including some exotica.

Friends twelve miles away report a similar phenomenon.

 

Yes, the Sparrowhawks are well fed and the feral cat takes about one every fortnight but it doesn't account for the missing hundreds.

 

We still see all the crow family, pheasants, partridge, buzzards and the like but the common visitors - blue tits etc., - are nowhere to be seen. Even a tray of dried meal worms, usually gone in five minutes, is still untouched after a week.

 

As a sort of 'rough' survey, I'd be interested to see our UK members' experience recently.

More than usual / same as usual / less than usual / unusually low numbers.

Not that RMWeb members are necessarily rough.

[Pannier Tank]

This is our first year with a bird table; just said to the missus that the Fat Balls are not disappearing as quick over the last few days. Just a few sparrows, robins etc.

[PhilH]

Possibly there is abundant food everywhere for them? It has been the time of year when fruits, seeds etc., are everywhere in hedgerows, woods etc. so possibly they're eating them.

[Jack]

Just magpies and the occasional robin or wood pidgeon here. Although there is plenty of evidence for owls and buzzards as well.

 

Given the bird table is still in one piece I guess we haven't had a visit from the Great Bustard yet

 

No sign of small birds though, except for the robins.

 

My mother, who lives in Kent, has plenty of visits from all the usual customers, with no sign of the bird numbers falling.

[BlackRat]

We have had the same but guessed it was due to plenty of natural food being about.

 

Having said that this morning we have had our first Black Caps along with 7 Sparrows, 3 Blue Tits, Coal and Great tits, Chaffinch, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Robin and Wren, most feeding off the feeder.

 

Mrs BR commented earlier she was going to change the contents of said as they had gone off!

 

Also had the Great (or Coal cant quite see) enlarging the entry hole on one of the nest boxes, sounds like a Woodpecker and great fun to watch!

[Ian J.]

Stratford, London: Great Tits, Blue Tits, Goldfinches, Robins all still present and feeding from my feeders, although the d*mned grey squirrels keep scoffing the sunflower hearts and I can't stop them short of going out and shooing them away.

[The Stationmaster]

Thames Valley. The 'take' on all our various feeders is about normal for this time of year but that does include supporting about 6-8 doves who seem to regard us as the avian equivalent of a soup kitchen. But there is plenty of natural food about well so we have had a seasonal drop-off of overall numbers of the smaller birds. The bird bath is however fully up to normal levels of business with various species although as usual the principal visitors are blackbirds.

 

The resident squirrel has been busily burying acorns which it seems (fortunately) to prefer to bulbs, we have at least one fox on regular patrol but it seemed to stop digging its various attempts at an earth after I put some rubble in all the holes I could find and the muntjac haven't been quite so much in evidence of late. Red kites are well up to normal numbers and still circle at times when they know folk will be putting stuff out for them however the young one that couldn't quite make up its mind to adopt a fir tree a couple of doors away from us does seem to be slightly less frequent in his visits.

[mezzoman253]

Sorry I may have cornered the market in starlings.

 

[DDolfelin]

Thanks for the replies.

I should have said that, in normal years, the small birds are feeding frantically from the feeders to prepare for the winter.

Maybe natural food is more abundant this year. The weather has certainly been a little strange recently.

[Pannier Tank]

Sorry I may have cornered the market in starlings.

 

You need to increase your QRO OM

[mezzoman253]

 

You need to increase your QRO OM

 

Hi David, Would be nice, but the locals may have other ideas. Rob

[melmerby]

Not so many tits on the feeders, although they have been on the pyracantha berries. The pigeons (wood variety only here) normally on the pyracantha haven't bothered being content with mowing the grass. There seem to be just as many birds around, just not bothering with the feeders so much. There does seem to be an abundance of berries this year - maybe as said before they don't need the feeders yet.

 

Don't seem to get many starlings around here( - maybe they are all sitting on mezzoman's aerial!)

Rather strangely, I used to live about ¾ mile from here and the garden used to be full of feral pigeons and starlings! Shows how local a bird population can be.

 

The swifts and martins seemed to have gone south only recently (rather later than usual?)

 

Keith (Worcestershire)

[Sidecar Racer]

Sorry I may have cornered the market in starlings.

 

Not if this is anything to go by .

 

http://www.flixxy.com/amazing-starlings.htm

[10800]

Mild weather and abundant natural food I think, as already mentioned. But apart from goldfinches, our finch population seems to have suffered this year, possibly due to that virus affecting many of them (so clean and disinfect your bird tables and feeders regularly). Robins very low this year, but could be due to cat predation. At the moment mostly tits and corvids.

[mezzoman253]

Nice video of the swarming starlings Mike.

 

We've not noticed any decline in populations in general. The magpies have done well, saw 7 on the roof of a house opposite yesterday morning. Over the years we've had over 35 types of bird come to the garden, but some only once. We will put out extra food when the weather gets colder, but there seems to be enough food around at the moment for them.

 

Nice to see so many interested in our feathered friends.

 

Rob

[dagrizz]

Food normally disappears from my bird table pretty quickly for most of the year but this year it has hardly been touched. There has been an increase in the cat population round here and they hide under bushes and hedges near the bird table waiting for unsuspecting prey.

[Kenton]

About the same as usual here. Though earlier in the yearthe squirrels were destroying nests and the pigeon pests were killing the fledglings.

 

I agree with Phil there seems to be a bumper crop of acorns and nuts and we have had the odd raspberry on the bushes even now with the leaves hardly falling. The season seems very long without the usual October gales and November frosts. It seems a bit pointless putting stuff on a bird table when there is plenty of natural food around. Come January-April with snow on the ground things will be different.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

What a coincidence, my wife decided to have a watch this morning. Fairly extensive Oak/Hornbeam woodland forms most of the boundaries of the garden. In one hour of the typical RSPB style 'maximum number seen simultaneously' survey her max numbers were

Chaffinch 4

Blue Tit 5

Coal Tit 2

Great Tit 6+ (they have a roost in the garden)

Long tail Tit 4

Greater spotted woodpecker 2 - adult feeding juvenile from peanut feeder.

Wren 1

Dunnock 3

Nuthatch 2

Thrush 1

Blackbird 2

Greenfinch 1

Unidentifiable LBJ none of above, suspect warbler.

Wood Pigeons, Jays, Magpies and other corvids, 'present'

 

The acorn drop and other fruiting has been plentiful this year for sure. Until about a fortnight ago the sunflower seed feeder was very lightly used, but it now is cleared within the day which is the usuakl thing all through the winter. (One of those foot tall, 2" diameter tube jobs in a squirrel proof housing which keeps out all but the smallest juvenile squirrels.)

[John M Upton]

This fellow is a very regular visitor to the communal gardens of my block of flats:

 

Some of the smaller birds have been a bit noticeable in the last few weeks by their abscence but I expect will soon be back, out in the nearby fields however visible from the railway line there has been a noticeable increases in very big birds in the area, kestrels, possibly buzzards, very big and brown anyway.

[DaveF]

Here in Northumberland there seem to be fewer birds in the garden probably because there is ample food available in the nearby farmland. Quite often I see starlings and sparrows on the beach investigating washed up seaweed for insects and small crustaceans.

 

But there in the past couple of years I have noticed there are a lot more magpies about and sparrowhawks regularly visit the gardens for a quick snack. In the larger open areas the local gulls are pretty good good at removing small birds.

 

David

Edited November 12, 2011 by DaveF

[chris p bacon]

Bedfordshire, about 1/2 a mile from the HQ of the RSPB, numbers are a bit lower in the garden but the weather is mild and there is abundant food about at the moment, where I am working backs onto open fields and there is no shortage there. In fact this morning I had to use the digger and within a few minutes a robin was using the digger bucket as a perch while I scraped the topsoil off, very convenient for him!

[oggy1953]

Hoddesdon, East Herts,,Very slow so far this year, probably due to the mild weather, But there are nowhere near as many birds nowadays as there were years ago. But that has been stated before.

[bob hughes60]

Just started with peanuts, blue tits in quick no long tailed tits yet.

My tame male woodie has been at the peanuts as have the jays.

No finches as yet.

Apples I put out untouched but the blackbirds cleared off the damsons.

There are still this years froglets in the garden and flying insects.

The high temperatures have fooled some plants into a third crop of flowers

had first hard frost last week so tomatoes in green houses just finished.

Not yet seen partridges and tamish pheasnats suggests food availbility high ?

Also no big skeins of geese going south yet (am on flypath).

I back onto farmland in what was a smallholding orchard between liverpool and manchester;

and usually get killer frosts in October; seems very mild to me. Dahlias just frosted time to lift the tubers.

Mind you last novemeber was mildish but from then on.......

Bob Hughes

Edited November 12, 2011 by bob hughes60

[bike2steam]

Mild weather and abundant natural food I think, as already mentioned. But apart from goldfinches, our finch population seems to have suffered this year, possibly due to that virus affecting many of them (so clean and disinfect your bird tables and feeders regularly). Robins very low this year, but could be due to cat predation. At the moment mostly tits and corvids.

 

The virus has been particularly bad for the Greenfinch population here, it used to be the most common small bird. The Owl population is on the increase - bloody things keeping us awake at night, so too is the hedge Sparrow back in large numbers.

[DDolfelin]

Dunnocks are keeping you awake at night, Paul?

That is unusual.