Bird Table News

Tomorrow I am going to be trying to sell a poetry booklet called LEST WE FORGET.

I am going to the Armed Forces Day.  This poetry  booklet has been put

together as a way to raise funds for The Royal British Legion.

Wish me luck.

 By raising money for  the RBL this booklet will help our Servicemen

The Royal British Legion have been really helpful

All the poems have been written by Yorkshire people. 

One of them was written by my father.

All of them, in some way or another, are about war.

I know this is nothing to do with birds and bird feeding, but in some ways it has.

If we had lost the Second World War things would have been completely different. 

Every soldier, sailor and airman would risk his life for this country.

They should be looked after if they are injured

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You’re  marvelous, spending the time to think of solutions to help all us birdlovers,

Keep doing it !
xx

This was in reply to these notes of mine

http://birdtablenews.com/2009/02/how-to-keep-pigeons-off-a-bird-table/#comments

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Can we say for certain this is a dunnock?

We have a bird nesting in our garden that we couldnt easily identify should be a Dunnock but the hen is almost a light Kaki coulour on her lower body uder her wings and back towards her tail.

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I had a couple mallards visiting when I lived in a remote cottage in Scotland. They would fly in for bread cubes every day which eventually they ate from my hand., but when I didn’t see them arrive the female would waddle around the cottage and jump up on the window sill to the living room where I was sitting and tap until I went around to the front door and fed them.

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Wonderful.  thank you Fred for sending this.

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It is a full moon tonight and I have been outside looking at the moon and the night sky.

Two owls hooted to each other and other night noises disturbed the silence.

The moon is closer to earth tonight than at any time since 1992.

There must be a cosmic power somewhere.   The night sky seems to hold secrets we will never understand and as the clouds floated near the moon I wished upon a star and upon the moon.

Two minutes later there was a shadow at the gate.  It was a cat!  So, we have a cat coming into the garden at night!  Actually this did not surprise me as I have been finding soft downy feathers of birds in a morning.  What can I do?  It ran away when I moved, but it will come back and it will go among the hedges and kill birds. 

Why don’t cat owners keep their cats inside.  Birds spend all day finding food and need the night time to roost.  Cats come along, after having slept all day and eaten their full from their cat plate and kill wildlife.  It can’t be right

Should cats be kept indoors.  Take a look at this point of view -

  http://birdtablenews.com/2009/01/keep-cats-indoors/

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Hi everyone,,I am new here and have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your comments. I am really enjoying feeding the birds in the garden and have blue tits,great tits,long tail tits,coal tits along with gold finches,green finches,chaffinces and a black cap along with others. But after seeing a sparrowhawk fly over a few times 2 weeks ago,,the little birds seem to have .  dwindles drastically. Today for instance I think I saw 2 siskins,2 goldfinches and 1 robin and that was my lot. Is the sparrow hawk the cause of this,and will they return? I do so hope so. Thanks for reading my comment,,hope you can help me.
Brenda

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Hi  Brenda,  Pleased you are enjoying the comments from everyone.  Welcome

You do have a lot of birds – blue tits,great tits,long tail tits,coal tits along with gold finches,green finches,chaffinches and a black cap plus more. 

Yes, I do think it will be the sparrowhawk that is keeping the birds away.  Better they stay away than be attacked.

Songbird Survival  http://www.songbird-survival.org.uk/ is a good website to look at.  Part of what they are doing is researching why Sparrowhawks are increasing in number.  They need as much help and support as they can get.

Where birds gather round birdtables you will often get sparrowhawks gathering there as well.  I suppose it is nature that birds gather where there is food.  Garden birds gather at our feeders and Sparrowhawks gather to catch the birds.

There are things you can do – feed in a caged feeder is one.  Put food inside a prickly hedge is another as Sparrowhawks will not risk damaging their feathers by going inside a spiky hedge.

I hope the sparrowhawk goes and the birds come back.  Let us know what happens.

Trisha

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I have Amazon on Bird Table News to see if I can raise any money to go towards bird food, nest boxes etc for our garden birds.

Just looked at Amazon and from 1 January to 1 March I have made £8.84 -

Thanks to all those who bought from Amazon on Bird Table News.

If you bought the bird box with camera and are reading this please let me know how you got on.

Also any of the other items such as how to knit and crochet and the Primal Blueprint book.

I won’t give up the day job just yet though!  

Any money made will go towards  the costs of feeding my many garden birds, but sadly it is not worth Amazon sending out small amount of money so I will not receive anything from them until the amount is larger.

I like Amazon though.  I think they are well organised and it is great to have a shop that is open 24 /7 and that can be reached from your computer!

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Exciting News.  I have just seen a Barn Owl flying soft and low over the hedges!   In the car lights the Owl looked a ghostly white against the dark, black sky.

There have been so many dead Barn Owls during the  winter.   I thought that our Barn Owl must have died of hunger.  The snow was so deep it has been nigh impossible for Barn Owls to get food this winter. 

I wonder how this Barn Owl survived.  Life will be easier for it now winter is just a bad memory.  I found last winter really hard, and seeing the Barn Owl made me realise how pleased I am he / she survived.

I can imagine this Barn Owl  enjoying the night sky and the soft winds – and the abundance of food and being pleased warmer weather is on the way – I know I am. 

Goodnight.

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The website I saw the Sparrowhawk deterrent is –

http://www.biconet.com/birds/scareEye.html 

this is in response to   

 http://birdtablenews.com/2010/12/a-way-to-keep-sparrowhawks-away/

Everytime it snows a Sparrowhawk(female) visits my garden and the birds go so wild and fly off.I have seen her on top of my Prunus tree eyeing the conifier next to it where there is a huge nest of sparrows and also lives a Robin.

From sitting on a branch she flew(all of a metre) from the prunus straight into the tree for the birds. I have even seen her chase a Blackbird around the side of my house. At first, I kept shooing her away – which worked. I saved many birds by doing this. These hawks have good memories! I was so upset!

I found a website which sells a particular type of scarecrow that will work on Sparrowhawks. It is illegal to hurt/trap these birds.

I thought a lot and after a few days, decided not to buy the device! On one hand, her presence shows I have a healthy garden. I read they only ever manage to catch just one out of every ten birds they chase.

To me, the saying “Survival of the fittest” never rang so true. I hear that the majority of time Sparrowhawks seem to catch the weak or injuried that would simply die of natual causes any way.

Only now do I have a deeper understanding of nature. Because of this thinking I don’t have that dreaded feeling of seeing her any more! Plus, Sparrows and Sparrowhawks have been living side by side for centuries without humans interfering.

The website I saw the Sparrowhawk deterrent is – http://www.biconet.com/birds/scareEye.html hope this works for you Elaine! I hear hanging anything reflective, CD’s etc. from trees also helps too.

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Thanks for sending this information.   It must have been a hard time for Sparrowhawks when the snow was on the ground.  I am not sure that Sparrowhawks go for the weakest.  I have heard of Sparrowhawks decimating an area of birds.

It is now illegal to kill Sparrowhawks. Killing sparrowhawks,  of course,  kept their numbers down.  Now, as they do not have any predators Sparrowhawks can increase in number and as their numbers increase so does the number of garden birds they prey on. I am not saying I want to kill sparrowhawks.  I’m just saying what has happened over the years

Take a look at this site  SONGBIRD SURVIVAL  

Songbird Survival discusses and studies the effects birds of prey have on Songbirds.  It is a very interesting and complicated problem.

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