Where have all our garden birds gone?

[monkeysarefun]

15 hours ago, pH said:

We had an unusual visitor to our yard yesterday. I'd heard a commotion in the trees across the road - some birds were obviously not happy. Then I was sure I had seen a light blue bird fly across the road, but I couldn't see it on this side. I continued working, turned round and saw this:

 

 

It was very tame - it tried a couple of times to perch on my belt buckle! I asked the neighbours if they had a bird cage - we don't. They didn't, and when I went back to our yard, the budgie had gone. Then about half an hour later, the neighbour came round to say they had caught the budgie in their yard. It had actually perched on her finger. She had called a friend who has a lot of birds, and she had come with a cage and taken it away. We hope it survives the stress.

 

We've got one  with a vocabulary of over 150 words,  he's a brilliant talker - Shakespeare quotes, song lyrics and so on.

 

My partner has tried to teach him our address as in "I live at (address)" in case he ever escapes and ends up somewhere like this one..

 

Its been 2 years and its the only thing we've tried to teach him that he's never been interested in learning.

 

(That one looks like a female so is unlikely to have its address programmed into it....!)

Edited April 30, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[jbqfc]

looking at the caterpillars been taken into the nest box we have chicks 

 

John

[Reorte]

Fewer caterpillars and more chicks, good combination!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Someone in central Herts may be wondering where one of her or his garden birds is. We have a Peahen strutting about; and occasionally doing the foghorn HONK! bit...

 

16 hours ago, jbqfc said:

looking at the caterpillars been taken into the nest box we have chicks 

Our 'Mrs Fidget' (Blue Tit) is still brooding. So different in behaviour from last year: she just sat, with occasional egg turning; this girl stirs them up every 30 seconds, thus 'Mrs Fidget'. That's on top of the different egg laying strategies: last year just over one a day, ten eggs laid over eight days, this year eight in a day, and possibly three more the following morning: difficult to tell how many she is now brooding as the nest is more full of down than last year, seen a maximum of nine today as she has flitted out twice this morning.

 

So have seen the behavioural extremes in Blue Tit laying and brooding on the basis of two year's observations since the box camera was installed? Seems very unlikely. It's been a great entertainment, can't wait for what next year might show us...

[GlenPudzeoch]

Pheasant - we have at least three males who come, leave deposits, eat any seeds, fatballs etc and flow away, noisily.  We do live near to an estate where they are raised for shooting, so a number do escape and we are happy to enjoy them ( I'm filling raisins with sleeping powder as I type a la Danny Champion of the World).  The hen phesants are making nests by the railway line which, as no trimming, weedkilling or other engineering work is going on manage quite well, as long as they avoid the hourly emu flying in!

[Reorte]

5 minutes ago, GlenPudzeoch said:

...as long as they avoid the hourly emu flying in!

 

Well an emu certainly belongs in a thread about birds!

[boxbrownie]

38 minutes ago, GlenPudzeoch said:

Pheasant - we have at least three males who come, leave deposits, eat any seeds, fatballs etc and flow away, noisily.  We do live near to an estate where they are raised for shooting, so a number do escape and we are happy to enjoy them ( I'm filling raisins with sleeping powder as I type a la Danny Champion of the World).  The hen phesants are making nests by the railway line which, as no trimming, weedkilling or other engineering work is going on manage quite well, as long as they avoid the hourly emu flying in!

We have two male pheasants this year and about three females nesting in our hedge undergrowth, unfortunately the two males are very flighty and scaredy-cats where as the previous old male (which went missing over the winter) would eat peanuts out of our hand, great party trick for visitors  they are absolutely stunning birds up close, the feather are truly iridescent. 

[Reorte]

My grandparents once had a male pheasant that kept coming in to their garden and ended up getting very tame, and expecting food from everyone - to the point where the postman complained about it going for him.

[boxbrownie]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

My grandparents once had a male pheasant that kept coming in to their garden and ended up getting very tame, and expecting food from everyone - to the point where the postman complained about it going for him.

Our old,one used to tap on the French doors in the lounge if there were no peanuts out for him.....bloody cheek! Now it’s just the Squirrels that sit in the kitchen window cill and stare in waiting for shell peanuts handouts 

[boxbrownie]

[boxbrownie]

And this is Cyril.......

[hmrspaul]

On 28/04/2020 at 14:15, hmrspaul said:

Starlings are the one bird that, here in urban York, is a good example of the title of this topic. I haven't seen one in months, if not years and before that there were just three which would collect on the large old horse chestnut outside our window in the evening before going to roost. Everything else has increased in numbers, not least magpie, crow, collared dove and wood pigeon - indeed these are now in Museum gardens forcing the feral (Stock) pigeons into the very center of the city.

 

Paul

 

Careful what you wish for, or the power of RMWeb

 

Well having written that only a week ago, 6 turned up in the garden on Saturday - 1 May. Now I haven't seen one in our back garden for absolutely ages before this. They have been back each day since, and are capable of emptying a full tube of meal worms in a couple of hours - such a tube used to feed the smaller birds, and even the local magpie for 2 - 4 days.

 

[The Lurker]

Saw my first swifts of the year this morning, just a couple swooping around in the breeze about half six.

 

A few minutes later I saw a heron flying over - a fairly rare occurrence here.

 

 

[jbqfc]

seen my first house martin of the year 

 

John

[tigerburnie]

We have Sand Martins and House Martins, over the garden, did see a couple of Swallows a few days back, but as we've had an overnight frost, I think(hope) they've gone to find somewhere warmer.

This Robin is nesting in the garden, he's just had a bath.

 

[Mallard60022]

More martins this morning; about another dozenish but they are whizzing wildly so can't really count. Await 'our' two Swift that usually appear about now.

P

[88D]

I was about to do a ‘worried of Hebden Bridge’ post about the lack of swallows. But I have just seen my first two of the year, a bit later than  sightings by others. Hopefully, they will fly into our barn and nest again. We used to have 6-7 pairs of nesters years back. They then disappeared completely, but over the last three years we have built back up to 3 nesting pairs.

 

[Mallard60022]

….. and there they are, 'our' two Swift have arrived this evening. Lifts the heart at this horrible time.

Phil

[deepfat]

We might have them.  Lots of activity in darkest Surrey we have jays 3 x kinds of tits , green and lesser spotted woodpeckers, kites soaring on the thermals and a nuthatch 

[dhjgreen]

Dad showing 2 young blackbirds round the food sources in our garden just now.

[dhjgreen]

A young great tit was just shown the suet and mealworms in the window mounted feeder.  Best thing we ever got for birds that window feeder, a LTT just knocked a great tit out of the way to get to it!

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, dhjgreen said:

A young great tit was just shown the suet and mealworms in the window mounted feeder.  Best thing we ever got for birds that window feeder, a LTT just knocked a great tit out of the way to get to it!

I've not seen any long tailed tits for a couple of weeks now, they seem to turn up in winter and vanish once they get nesting underway. There was one a few weeks ago poking in to cobwebs in the corner of the window, I wondered if it was gathering nesting material or just trying to eat anything caught there.

[dhjgreen]

Spider's web is a main ingredient in a LTT nest.  Our LTTs have bent tails now, probably sqished as they squeeze into the nest.

 

We have a 50metre run of mixed hedge in our garden and we can see signs of robin, blackbird, great tit and LTT nesting there: a neighbour has a number of conifers with goldcrest.  We also have a crow nesting in our oak tree.  Great fun to see the crow chasing off a heron and a cat!

[PhilJ W]

[Phil Bullock]

Bird activity in our garden this morning was frantic - the usual criminals, magpies, Jackdaws, Blackbirds, House and Hedge Sparrows, blue tits and Robin, pigeons and doves. Went outside to feed them to the sound of a Goldfinch singing from the cherry tree - could not see him but certainly could hear him, I stood there for 10 mins listening .... and went back in house wondering why the goldfinches stay in the trees and never come further down in to the garden.

 

Half an hour later looked out again and there they were - two of them, sitting on the lawn. Called SWMBO quick - and even she was amazed by their painted livery.

 

Happy now!