Bird Table News

A while ago Mal got in touch as  dunnocks had disappeared from his garden – where they had been for years.

This is what he said the -

http://birdtablenews.com/2010/10/have-you-seen-any-dunnocks-in-your-garden/

He’s been in touch again to say he has now got one dunnock in his garden. He still doesn’t know why or where they disappeared to.

I replied to him -

Really pleased you have got a dunnock back. And thanks for letting us know.

Do you put any bird food out?    Bird food would certainly attract and help dunnocks and other birds as well.

I use Nature’s Feast High Energy Supreme.  It is about £20 for a large bag! but it feeds so many garden birds. It  is the only bird seed i put out in the ground feeder and in places on the lawn.  Dunnocks come to the ground feeder to get this seed.

I put out other bird food though. 

You must have a hedge and maybe some shrubs where they can ‘hide’ and shelter

I live on a farm and we had someone from Natural England advising us on which bird food mix would be good on the farm for wild birds.  Through the kitchen window we could see a lot of birds, but he did not recognise a dunnock!   Dunnocks really do test your identification skills and powers of observation.

It’s great that you are trying to bring dunnocks back into your garden.  

The dunnock seems to love leaf litter and undergrowth.  I mostly see dunnocks on the ground – I put a lot of bird food out in a caged feeder and have surrounded a shrub with a type of ‘fence’ so that larger birds cannot get in.

The dunnock has a very thin bill and can only eat small things.   The bird seed I put out is very small and come to get that

thanks for getting in touch and I’m really pleased.  When I look out of the window and see a Dunnock I’ll try and think what is attracting it to my garden.

But I must say I live in the countryside and get a few birds from woodland nearby.

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All but three of my swallows have gone and I’m concerned for the last three that are left.
Does anyone think they will leave on their own or perhaps will they stay.  There was a swallow in S.England that survived the winter in England last year. I’m North East and on a very exposed cliff top site.   Christine

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Hi, Christine,

I think it is very unlikely the swallows will survive.

The parent swallows must have known they would not survive the flight.  Swallows have more than one brood and these swallows could  have been from the last brood.

 

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For years I always had dunnocks in my garden and they had youngevery year,

 however this year I have neither seen or heard any.

Is there a problem with them.

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I have had this question posed to me.  I’m sure I have had dunnocks in the garden, but they are so timid and creep  about under cover of hedges that just take them for granted.

Have you seen any dunnocks about?   I  hope so.

 

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All summer we have commented and pondered about how few swallows there are flying about our heads this summer.

Each summer the number of swallows reduces.  I remember when the sky was alive with them.

Now we see that two fields away there is a bountiful number of swallows.

Nature is unexplainable.

We have the same nesting sites.  We seem to have the same number of flies!  We still have the herd of cows – which attrack swallows.

So, all is not lost with the swallows and it was wonderful to see so many

I’d love to be able to do what  a 12C  German Prior did -

About the 12th Century in Germany a Prior in a Monastery fixed a parchment to a swallow’s leg asking -

 ’Swallow where do you live in winter’

The following spring the Prior received the reply attached to the swallow’s leg

‘In Asia, the home of Petrus’.

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Amazing.  What a simple idea.  How did the Prior catch the swallow?  Did he expect a reply? 

From that piece of parchment it was discovered that swallows flew from Germany to Asia. 

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About 1740 a man called Johann Leonard Frisch tied some wool to swallows’ legs. 

He wanted to find out if the same swallow returned to the same nest year after year. 

The following Spring he found out that they do!

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I anticipate the return of the swifts and swallows every Spring and know they return but there are only a handful on this farm at present.

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I don’t think the birds would fair any better to be honest if you stop feeding them.

If you encounter a Sparrow Hawk stalking the garden then altering the feeding plan should help the smaller birds.

If there are one or even two SHs flying around then you would need to be extra vigilant and think very carefully about what to do, even if it means stopping feeding them for a week or two until there is no threat.

I haven’t seen a SH in my garden for many months now, and

I have stopped hanging up feeders.

I have camouflaged an area for the birds in which they can eat.

When the bird of prey was watching the feeders, I took them down and didn’t put much food out as normal until it was all clear. It would have been more difficult in the winter but I would’ve done my best to protect the garden birds and made sure they had something to eat. They are very happy out there and have a wonderful life eating healthily.

If it wasn’t for me and no doubt many others feeding them through the harsh winter I am certain most would’ve died.

To see the same groups of birds flying around after winter is a privilege.

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Shell is a friend of Bird Table News and I’m really pleased she has sent this good advice.

I am a bit like Shell in the way I feed the birds.  I put some bird food under a bush and this has camouflagedthe bird food and birds of prey won’t be able to see it.

I do have hanging feeders but they are caged feeders now.

I echo what Shell says -  To see the same groups of birds flying around after winter is a privilege.

Thanks for getting in touch Shell

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In response to the article below I received an interesting point of view  -

http://birdtablenews.com/2010/03/sparrowhawks-and-their-prey/http://birdtablenews.com/2010/03/sparrowhawks-and-their-prey/

Here is the point of view -

I agree with most of the above items ,but my thought is that by putting feeding stations ,of whatever sort out for wild birds are we then not morally responsible,if these feeding stations become a target .

Is it possible that the birds would fair better if we had not fed them,a point which I would like to put to the RSPB as a member .They reckon that they are far too busy to answer emails ,

It is sad when you would like an answer to a question that is important to you ,that an organisation you have supported for years has not time for their members Nigel

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This raises a few points.  Sadness that the RSPB do not answer member’s emails.  I remember emailing them and not getting a reply.  I thought the email must have not been received.  Now I wonder.

The RSPB are a charity.  But do they support garden birds at all.

A friend said that if they are a charity then why don’t they give away a certain amount of bird food – in the way that other charities give shelter and food to the homeless..  I think I follow her logic

I believe we become morally responsible for the birds we feed.  In some way their lives are in our hands.   We attract them in large and small numbers to certain areas of our gardens.  We save their lives in winter but we also attract birds of prey.

Perhaps the sparrowhawk would never have visited my garden and killed blackbirds if I had not put bird food out.  YetI know in the freezing cold of last winter I saved birds lives by putting bird food out.

You may be interested in SONGBIRD SURVIVAL 

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We have had so few swallows this year.

I’ve been waiting to see if any late swallows arrived but they haven’t

Each year for a few years we have had less and less swallows.   Each year I thought that swallow numbers would increase.  They haven’t

How can swallow numbers increase –  when each year fewer and fewer swallows are leaving here each year?

http://birdtablenews.com/2009/08/one-possible-reason-why-swallow-numbers-may-be-in-decline/

We can feed garden birds and help them survive, but swallows are a much more complicated problem

Swallows travel the globe so any global problem could be a swallow’s problem.

It seems so odd with hardly any swallows about

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There is no getting away from the fact that we have never had so few swallows here as we have this year.

I so hope that they are late arriving.  At this rate next year there won’t be any swallows at all.

All my life I have seen swallows come and go.  It’s part of life and marks the seasons in a small way.

Yes in another part of the country Swallow Lady says that  last year she had  more swallows than ever.

I wonder if it depends on which migratory path the swallows took.  Wouldn’t it be fascinating and helpful if we knew that.

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It is really nice to get some interesting facts about swallows and house martins.  I never thought about the difference between swallow and house martin nests.

It is worrying that not so many swallows seem to be here this year. 

From Garth  –

On  looking back to some of the reports on the breeding of these species I wonder if the nests are being identified correctly?

It is swallows that build a cup nest and usually use the interior of a building, whereas house martins is an enclosed mud structure on the outside of buildings, such as eaves or the apex of a house.

Over the twelve years I have been ringing swallows as a BTO project I have only had one occasion where a swallow nested under the eaves using the usual cup nest. This was at a site one year when there was pressure for finding a site, as there were a dozen or so pairs setting up home.

The sad fact is over all those years it is only about 30% of adults that manage to return and breed, but they regularly come back to where they first nested. The young birds have a greater failure rate and tend to not breed where they were hatched but do turn up within a 2-3 mile radius.

At the end of this month May I have one swallow nest where the eggs have hatched, and are also bit later this year in Worcestershire.

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One thing is certain – less swallows means more flies

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Garth replied in reply to this articlce -  http://birdtablenews.com/2009/09/recording-swallow-numbers/

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