Bird Table News

No.   I don’t mean  I have a pet rook.  This is a book about a lady who took a half dead rook chick home to feed it.

The rook grow and she was hoping to turn him back out into the wild.

Then one day she realised she had left it too late. 

The Rook spoke to her. 

It spoke with such clarity it amazed her.  It had been listening whenever she spoke and had copied her speach.  I won’t tell you what it said.

If  you would like to know more about this book click on the blue link below or  go to my Amazon Shop which is in the right margin and just click on the green header which says ‘Amazon.co.uk’ and it will take you to the book

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CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE OR TO BUY ‘CORVUS: A LIFE WITH BIRDS

This lovely book is written by Esther Woolfson

If you click on the image it will  NOT  take you to to the Amazon.co.uk Bird Table News shop

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A while ago I  had a comment from a lady.   She told me that in May last year  she saw  a crow pluck a blackbird off the hedge and eat the blackbird.
Before you read this – don’t let it put you off feeding birds – there is a lot of fun to be had feeding birds
I was telling a friend about the blackbird being eaten by a crow and she told me that in the car park where she works two crows were pecking a live dove to bits. She  rushed out, the crows flew away but the dove was so badly mauled it died.
The crows kept on maurauding round the car park looking for the dove they had lost.
Nature is raw and harsh.
Here in her own words is the lady’s story about the crow taking a blackbird. -

We have a breeding pair of blackbirds in our garden (or did have).

The female was wise and had learnt to flap her wings to balance herself whilst she fed on the feeder that she was not meant to fit on to.

Unfortunately, I have just witnessed a crow, pluck her out of the hedge row, and despite my efforts to scare it to drop her, the crow flew off and promptly devoured her. So yes crows do kill birds…Not so keen on crows at the moment

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No neither am I.
The crow breeds between April and June. I wonder if the crow was finding food for it’s young, or if the crow population is getting bigger.
It is sad that a blackbird dies and a crow survives.  It may be that crows that will multipy and the blackbirds reduce in number.
Here is some information

• Crows are completely black.
• They nest in trees and are solitary birds, unlike rooks who nest in colonies. 
• Crows have  a black beak. Rooks are black with a pale beak. 
• As well as eating smaller birds crows eat seeds, fruit, insects, eggs, kitchen scraps, small mammals, amphibians, snails – I could go on.

  I  myself was horrified when ages ago I watched a crow eating a blackbird.

I couldn’t describe how bad it was to watch. I did not know if it had found a dead blackbird or if it had caught a live blackbird. I think now it must have caught the blackbird when it was alive.
Crows eating birds must happen a lot. I have seen it happen, a friend has seen it happen and the lady who sent this comment has seen it happen.
Surely it must happen unseen all the time in among the hedge rows and trees.
With a predator like a crow to contend with birds certainly don’t need cats prowling about  after them .
Cats are domesticated and get fed by their owners.  Yet, cats can kill all the time, not just when they are hungry.   I have seen cats killing birds  a number of times – once when we had a stray cat move into our house

I have also had trouble with rooks and crows at the birdtable in my garden

Maybe cats and crows are two of the reasons for the decline in some birds – sparrowhawks may be another.

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Here are some memories of how corn was harvested in the past

When the corn in the stooks is dry, a few weeks later we all go up to Farm to ride on the waggons going up to empty the harvest fields.

The waggons are painted carts with wide ledges round them.  Two horses pull each one, swinging their tails to keep the flies away.   We sit on the ledges hanging on like grim death.  The waggons rattle and bump down the road on huge wooden wheels.

Sometimes my Uncle Art sits on one of the horses.  He always picks a wild rose to stick in his cap.  He laughs like mad when we shriek that we are sliding off and makes the horses go faster.

When he isn’t laughing, he is whistling or singing at the top of his voice, all the way to the fields.

We have to walk all the way back.  The waggons are piled up high with the sheaves, to take them back to the farm. 

Sometimes the men haven’t piled them on properly and they will shout “hey up! It’s going to shut”!.  A pile of sheaves shoot out from the middle, then all the lot topples onto the road.  They have to pack them all on again. 

When the sheaves get to the stack yard some men with pitch forks build them into a stack.  I think they must be very clever to build them up so neatly.

They never “shut” but loads of mice jump out.  The dogs love stacking days as they chase all the mice about.

Soon it will be crab-appling and brambling time.

Connie Spendlow

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This little bird, or one very much like it pays a visit to my bird table and ground feeder every day.

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Within the last few days our garden has been devastated by a Sparrowhawk.

I did manage to frighten it off one blackbird, but as each day has passed the blackbirds I have fed currants over the last four or so years have disappeared.

No dawn chorus,

red berries still on the Rowan tree – garden so still and quiet.

I haven’t seen the local Jay either. Sad but that is nature. The Sparrowhawk must move on to find more food and, hopefully, we will have new blackbirds next year

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I received the above sorry tale from a reader.

She says – it is nature, but the sparrowhawk does not have any natural predators.

I keep getting details of sparrowhawks killing songbirds. Surely sparrowhawk killings must account for some of the decline in garden birds that the RSPB is so concerned about.

If you are interested click the link below to read -

MY OPINION ON SPARROWHAWKS

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Please click the link below to read different opiniont from the RSPB and Songbird Survival on Sparrowhawks.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS FROM SONGBIRD SURVIVAL AND RSPB

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LINK TO SONG BIRD SURVIVAL

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One thing we can all do that will help and that is (if possible) plant a Hawthorn Hedge.  Sparrowhawks will not go inside a Hawthorn Hedge because of the thorny branches – they cannot risk getting their wing feathers torn

INFORMATION ABOUT HAWTHORN HEDGES

Another thing we can do is use caged feeders / covered feeders that keep large birds of prey away from garden birds when they are feeding.

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What is your opinion?

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• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-09 http://ff.im/-6mQJI #
• Decline in Birds Locally and Worldwide? http://ff.im/-6pWlF #
• How Many Birds are Singing? http://ff.im/-6yc0P #
• Some Songbirds are getting smaller – it’s official http://ff.im/-6zbOO #
• POSSIBLE REASONS FOR LOSS OF BIRDS AT FEEDERS http://ff.im/-6BFWg #
• What a lovely photo http://bit.ly/Nri8O #
• Bird Photographs http://ff.im/-6E5yU #
• Rats killing swallows? http://ff.im/-6E6My #
• HANGING BIRD FEEDER FOR SALE http://ff.im/-6GWi6 #

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I received a question from a reader about what was killing the swallows on the farm.

To read her problem CLICK HERE

The conclusion we came to was that it is rats that are getting the swallows.

Rats get everywhere. 

What a horror that so many swallows have been killed in one season.

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Bird Photographs.

 Enjoy!

Thank you Dawn for sending these bird photographs in  - and apologies for taking so long to put them on Bird Table News

Fledgling Robin

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Woodpecker

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Dunnock

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Mallards

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More to follow.

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At this time of year birds have finished breeding. They often move into another area where they will spend the winter.

Birds like Blackbirds, Robins, and Song Thrushes are partial migrants, and breeding birds will probably move a small distance to the south, before being replaced by birds from northern Europe and Scandinavia. We can have Blackbirds in our gardens all the time, but they could be different blackbirds in winter and summer.

Birds like Chaffinches and Yellowhammers generally form feeding flocks on farmland in winter, and are not seen so often in gardens,

At this time of year there is a lot of food in the countryside and some birds don’t need to come to garden feeders – so even sedentary species such as Blue Tits will go to different habitats at this time of year. They only have themselves to feed as the young fledglings have grown.

[ad#125x125square]However, once the weather starts getting colder, and natural food supplies get less, birds such as tits and finches will move back and start to take food from garden bird feeders.

So it may be that the loss of birds in the garden could be that birds are simply changing their habits at the end of the breeding season

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The above is a reply to a question a reader wrote asking about the loss of birds feeding in her garden. Click the link below to read the question

http://birdtablenews.com/2009/08/decline-in-birds-locally-and-worldwide/

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