Where have all our garden birds gone?

[rodshaw]

Reminds me one day a couple of months ago a sparrowhawk did a landing on our fence not three yards away from where I was sitting looking out of the window. Of course by the time I'd gone to fetch my wife it had gone.

 

But - almost everything apart from dunnocks and woodpigeons seems to have disappeared from our garden of late. The feeders are hardly touched, and no goldfinches, any kind of tit, even robins, for a while now.

[PhilJ W]

This can be a problem with bird feeders. They attract many species of birds some of which are prey species which in turn attracts the raptors. The raptors drive many of the other birds away but  there's still enough prey for them in the area to make them stay. Try moving the bird feeders nearer to trees and shrubs where the birds can take cover if a raptor is around.

[Barry Ten]

2 hours ago, rodshaw said:

Reminds me one day a couple of months ago a sparrowhawk did a landing on our fence not three yards away from where I was sitting looking out of the window. Of course by the time I'd gone to fetch my wife it had gone.

 

But - almost everything apart from dunnocks and woodpigeons seems to have disappeared from our garden of late. The feeders are hardly touched, and no goldfinches, any kind of tit, even robins, for a while now.

 

It could be just seasonal feeding habits. Although it's been a bit different this year, most years long months go by when we don't see some species, such as goldfinches, green finches, long-tailed tits and so on. Woodpeckers also seem to come and go. They're ever-present at the moment, but I wouldn't mind betting they go off again soon and we don't see them for a few months.

 

Can;t remember where I read it, but I seem to remember reading that a lot of garden birds will still get most of their nutrition from "the wild" rather than feeders, perhaps because it pays to keep a varied diet and not to be too reliant on one source.

 

 

 

 

[hmrspaul]

The British Trust for Ornithology has been recording garden birds for 25 years. They go on their holidays at this time of year - out to the countryside where this month of mellow fruitfulness means there is ample fresh food - not least lots of hedgerow fruits. They'll be back when things get hard and when they need help with feeding the kids. 

 

House Sparrows seem to be an exception to this - and there are plenty flocking through our urban garden.

 

Look for your favourite birds in https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw/results/annual-patterns-garden-use 

 

Paul

 

[jonny777]

1 hour ago, hmrspaul said:

The British Trust for Ornithology has been recording garden birds for 25 years. They go on their holidays at this time of year - out to the countryside where this month of mellow fruitfulness means there is ample fresh food - not least lots of hedgerow fruits. They'll be back when things get hard and when they need help with feeding the kids. 

 

House Sparrows seem to be an exception to this - and there are plenty flocking through our urban garden.

 

Look for your favourite birds in https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw/results/annual-patterns-garden-use 

 

Paul

 

 

That BTO fact is true; and fortunately I was one who started in 1995. As I am still at the same address, I hope my records provide a great insight into the rises and declines of various species for researchers. 

 

Many birds moult at this time of year, and tend to keep hidden for as much time as they can while this takes place, as they are vulnerable to predators. 

 

I would not worry too much about few birds coming to feeders in August and September as wild food sources are in abundance. I try not to fill my feeders more than maybe half full, as rotting uneaten seed contains all manner of nasty bacteria which can and will affect birds, if left for any length of time. 

 

Once the weather begins to turn less favourable, especially temperature, you should find the birds returning. The secret is to provide a lot of regular food during the breeding season (which may not always be the obvious advice given by bird feeding sources). If you are lucky, the parent birds will bring the fledglings to the garden, or relatively close to it, and after feeding them for a while the adults will fly off and leave the babies to fend for themselves. 

 

This is just what you want, as the juveniles will become familiar with a regular food supply and will learn where it is geographically in the local area. They may vanish for days on end, but if the situation gets dire they will remember where the 'guaranteed all you can eat buffet' is located and return whenever they fancy. 

 

 

[jonny777]

I ought to have added that the negative effects of cats (and to a lesser extent, dogs) should never be underestimated when garden bird numbers begin to decline in any particular garden. 

 

You may think that surely dogs have no effect on garden birds, but my observations over 35 years at my current address would disagree with you. When my next door neighbour's Jack Russell died many years ago, there was a period of a couple of months where bird numbers in my garden started to increase quite noticeably. 

 

I can't prove the lack of a small but active and noisy animal, which barked at anything that moved, was responsible; but it seemed rather an interesting coincidence. 

 

Cats are much more of a problem, but birds tend to monitor cat movements through daylight hours and the alerts of various bird species will follow them around. I have never owned a cat, but a lot of households around the area do (or did), and my garden bird numbers rise and fall dramatically with the adjacent cat population. At present, there seem to be very few, as the person with two cats moved away to be replaced by a catless couple with a toddler; and the cat in the garden behind us seems to have died, or become too old to bother going out much. As a consequence, I have not seen a cat in the back garden for a number of months. 

 

The effect has been startling, or very coincidental (again). Whereas I used to get the occasional goldfinch every month or so, I now get them on the seed feeders every day, and last week I counted 13 trying to divide themselves between 12 ports of black sunflower seeds and sunflower hearts. Long tailed tits are making much more frequent journeys into the garden, and greenfinches are becoming much more of a regular sight. 

 

All I can say is Wow! Thankyou to the catless neighbours. 

 

 

[boxbrownie]

Definitely do not underestimate dogs as you say, our neighbours poodle, not sure what type but a “mid sized” version......never seen a dog so fast, and we have Jack Russells on the farm, this poodle catches so many birds in her vegetable patch (no it’s not a euphemism) I really never knew dogs could catch birds like that!

[jbqfc]

hand a visit of six long tailed tits this morning first i have seen since March 

 

John

[88D]

Went to St Aidans reserve near Castleford the other day. Saw a couple of spoonbills, whinchat, stonechat, shovelers  plus the regulars. But also an humongous Ruston Bucyrus dragline.  Never realised they were that big.

[PhilJ W]

That dragline appeared in the Abandoned Engineering series on the Yesterday Channel only a few weeks ago.

[88D]

Driving from Norfolk to Carlisle on Sunday, I managed to see: red kites, buzzards, a shedload of kestrels, a sparrowhawk and two peregrines. One of the peregrines did a swoop on a wood pigeon, which managed to skeedaddle out of the way at the very last minute. The peregrine couldn’t pick up speed again against the wood pigeon, who flew away with comparative ease. Good little contest though!

[tigerburnie]

Wren 

[nigb55009]

SpotteSpotted this in our garden just over a week ago, sparrowhawk possibly.

[88D]

15 minutes ago, nigb55009 said:

SpotteSpotted this in our garden just over a week ago, sparrowhawk possibly.

Yep, and I don’t think it’s moulting!

[nigb55009]

No they`re definitely not his feathers. He, if that`s what it is, came back a couple of days later. It had just killed a sparrow, it was still on the ground with the whole thing in it`s talons. He flew off before I could grab a photo.

[88D]

2 hours ago, nigb55009 said:

No they`re definitely not his feathers. He, if that`s what it is, came back a couple of days later. It had just killed a sparrow, it was still on the ground with the whole thing in it`s talons. He flew off before I could grab a photo.

Female, I reckon.

[nigb55009]

She didn`t scare the smaller birds away, I took this the next morning.

[rodshaw]

 

"You looking at me?"

 

[jbqfc]

i got some new caged feeders as i got sick of the pigeons swinging off the feeder scaring everything off 

lots of people told me if i got caged feeders my goldfinches would not use them two days on and they use them no problem

 

 

John 

[Barry Ten]

A nice treat this morning:

 

[The Lurker]

Not a sighting- but a hearing! I heard a couple of nights ago I woke in the middle of the night and realised I could hear an owl calling; it got nearer and then further away again- a bit of research and I confirmed the call as a male tawny owl. There is obviously enough prey on the edge of suburbia- perhaps it was over in Foots Cray meadows which aren’t so far away

[Killybegs]

Saw 6 herons flying line astern on Saturday so we must have a heronry somewhere nearby.

[rodshaw]

Well, they're all back now. Yesterday, all at the same time, we had long-tailed tits, blue tits, great tits, starlings, a robin, blackbirds, adult and young goldfinches, and, for the first time...a great spotted woodpecker. Didn't manage to get a photo of it unfortunately.

[tigerburnie]

Tawny Owls hooting, this is the time of year when they stake a claim for territories for next years breeding, the female shouts "Tuwit" and the males replies "Whooo"

[boxbrownie]

8 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Tawny Owls hooting, this is the time of year when they stake a claim for territories for next years breeding, the female shouts "Tuwit" and the males replies "Whooo"

The opposite to white van man, he shouts woohoo and the ladies shout TWIT