Birds, or rather lack of.......

[Salad Dodger]

The feathered kind, for avoidance of doubt.....

I live in a suburban house with a fairly small garden. For all of the 9 years that we have lived here, I have fed the birds (mostly sparrows) via a seed feeder.

But last autumn, the pigeons were becoming a real nuisance. About a dozen were hanging around hoping to catch "fall out" from the feeder, and even trying to actually hang onto the feeder and take seed from it. Eventually, reluctantly, I stopped feeding the birds.

Now I have been given a lovely new and allegedly pigeon proof feeder. But there just don't seem to be any little birds around. I am not seeing them around the garden much at all. Has anyone else experienced a decline in wild bird numbers?

 

[johnnyb47]

Yes the same here.The only birds I see around my feeder are the occasional crow and wood pigeon nowadays

 

[ColinJ]

I have really noticed the reduction in bird numbers over the past 50 years or so. I remember my mum chucking out stale bread when I was a boy, and there was always an immediate feeding frenzy with starlings, sparrows, thrushes etc. appearing as if from nowhere. I went to visit ma a couple of years before she died, so that would have been about 13 years ago, and chucked out a lot of old bread that was well past its best. Either birds had got a LOT more fussy, or they just weren't hanging around the way that they used to - the slices of bread were still lying there a week later!

 

[All uphill]

When we moved here it took a couple of years before decent numbers of little birds found our feeders. Now we have lots .

I don't understand why there are so few birds predating the pigeons - they would make a great meal for a hawk or falcon.

 

[All uphill]

I forgot to say we stopped using pesticides at the same time.

 

[ColinJ]

I have really noticed the reduction in bird numbers over the past 50 years or so.

Actually, that applies to other wildlife too...

I suffered a very traumatic wasp attack*** when I was a small child which left me terrified of the yellow and black beasties. It took me about 15 years to lose the fear so I was tormented by scores of wasps every summer until I was in my 20s. I have barely seen a wasp in the last decade or so!







*** Any children reading this - don't make the mistake that I made... Yes, I know it looks like the wasp nest is broken because there is a big hole in it, but honestly, the wasps do NOT want your help to block that hole with sticks!!!

 

[dan_bo]

Bird flu has knocked numbers for six. Hopefully they'll recover. Keep on putting food out though.

 

[Drago]

I know little of such matters, but do find the apparent decline sad and alarming.

Is there anything a normal(!) Joe like me can do as regards feeding them or bird boxes?

 

[Jameshow]

I have really noticed the reduction in bird numbers over the past 50 years or so. I remember my mum chucking out stale bread when I was a boy, and there was always an immediate feeding frenzy with starlings, sparrows, thrushes etc. appearing as if from nowhere. I went to visit ma a couple of years before she died, so that would have been about 13 years ago, and chucked out a lot of old bread that was well past its best. Either birds had got a LOT more fussy, or they just weren't hanging around the way that they used to - the slices of bread were still lying there a week later!

I was out on a farm doing woodwork on Saturday and the weather was warmish, the bird song was amazing, spring really had burst into life!

 

[PeteXXX]

Where I moved from on the eastern side of Hamtun last January we had loads of small birds.. goldfinches, tits etc and blackbirds starlings + the inevitable pigeons. But it did take quite a while for them to find us.
Now we've moved to the northern outskirts of the town, we get a few pigeons & a brace of magpies. That's it!
Hopefully, and we will persevere, the smaller birds will turn up, maybe in Spring when they're feeding their young.

 

[fossyant]

One from yesterday's walk.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Actually, that applies to other wildlife too...

I suffered a very traumatic wasp attack*** when I was a small child which left me terrified of the yellow and black beasties. It took me about 15 years to lose the fear so I was tormented by scores of wasps every summer until I was in my 20s. I have barely seen a wasp in the last decade or so!







*** Any children reading this - don't make the mistake that I made... Yes, I know it looks like the wasp nest is broken because there is a big hole in it, but honestly, the wasps do NOT want your help to block that hole with sticks!!!

I was put in A & E by one of the stripy f*****s a few years ago, serious reaction to being stung, I'm not keen on them either. On the subject of birds, we now live on the outskirts of the city and have very few birds in the garden. our last house was just outside the city centre and we had a large bird population in the back garden.

 

[Paulus]

Greenfinches in particular are suffering badly from disease that appears to be wiping them out.

 

[ColinJ]

I was out on a farm doing woodwork on Saturday and the weather was warmish, the bird song was amazing, spring really had burst into life!

That's something else I noticed, but only because someone pointed it out to me... They were saying how lovely some fairly distant birds sounded but I couldn't hear them. (Too much VERY loud music in my early years...)

I was put in A & E by one of the stripy f*****s a few years ago, serious reaction being stung, I'm not keen on them either

Yikes - nasty!

 

[derrick]

I blame the cats for our lack of birds, we have the cat women the other side of our fence, Bloody cats every where.