Hobbies and Crafts

Before l forget....some brilliant photo's on my blog from Shaun:))

AND WE HAD a Sparrow Hawk on back fence this afternoon:)))))
nope...no photo's:((

jude

Nite nite off to bed:)

Nudged up because Rose couldn't find it.

Thanks Ann, I remembered it started "do the birds know" and advance searched for that, then just for 'birds' and nothing :-(

Shame it dropped down we usually keep it up now we have two bird threads.

We can't let the thread disappear too far down the pages :-|
I just went to check the Coconut shell and fat balls.The Coconut is empty AGAIN,and I noticed big scratch marks on the Shell.Pesky Squirrel has obviously found it :-S

I tried a different thing with fat in, like a large piece of hollow bamboo but so far (about three weeks) the birds don't seem tow ant to go for it. Coconuts don't last long at all. I bet the squirrel thought he'd found a banquet!! :-D

Next door have a garden that attracts a lot of birds and they have lots of feeders and shrubs so although I haven't got a lot of plants yet I do get quite a few birds, mostly wood pigeons and collared doves which roost in the park, but two robins and two or three blackbirds are regulars.

Does anyone know if stale 'smoked' cheese is ok to put out?

I think it would be OK Rose, put it out in small amounts. Blackbirds certainly like cheese, I don't think the smoked part would hurt them.

cleaned and refilled all the feeders again today, they empty them as fast as we fill them. Not seen so many goldfinch today, last week we were getting four or five but only a couple today so somebody else must have filled their thistle seed feeder. Quite a few chaffinches and blue and great tits and about 4 greenfinches plus the usual sparrows, starlings, doves and blackbirds.

We've had about 4 blackbirds over the past few days and about 6 chaffinches. All year we've had the C/Doves, W/Pigeons, Jackdaws and the Crows. One Crow in particular comes to the garden regularily, he's the one that picked the Green Pine Cone.

Vic collected some orange berries twice today and put them on the bird tables and it seems the first lot have been eaten:))) yehh

Not seen the Sparrow Hawk this week:(( nor the Green parakeet:((

See yeh

jude :-)

I hope the sparrow hawk has not 'had' the green paraqueet for his/her dinner.

We had a small flock of about 12 long tailed tits pass through the garden today - they did investigate the feeders, but didn't stay very long. Haven't seen them here for a long time. There are a pair of wrens back in the garden, spend their time foraging in the cracks in the stone wall.
The lone collared dove seems to have found a mate, but she is
apparently not allowed to eat when he's around - bully boy.
Apart from that the usual sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, a blackbird, robin, and of course the marauding jackdaws.
Haven't seen the goldfinches for a few weeks. Niether have I seen the buzzards, or red kites lately.
Oh I forgot, a blackcap is visiting the berries left on the cabbage palm.

Tec.

Haven't seen the blackcap for ages, a pair used to be frequent visitors so i presume it has not been cold enough and they have plenty of natural food. Not seen any long tailed tits for ages either so you were lucky Tec. We do have a wren as an infrequent visitor and still get the goldfinches. Either a group of four or five or billy no mates on his/her own.

I am going to have to look in my bird book to see what all the different Finches are that we have.I should really know by now :-S.My son said he saw a whole load of birds on the coconut yesterday all at the same time.I thought they may have been the Long TT but he said they didn't have long tails.I haven't seen the Long TT for ages now.I have noticed a few sparrows (we don't get many).I do have several very bossy Robins lording it over the coconut lol

Hi all

great excitement here this morning......I noticed a couple of unusual shapes (for our trees) fly in. Grabbed the bins and id'ed the strangers - goldfinches!
We've watched them on the feeders in mid Wales but never seen them at home.
:-D

A mob of magpies have been flying in lately and jumping about in the trees and roof tops. We do have magpies here but this 'mob' activity is not usual. There's about 8 of them, behaving like teddy boys! LOL

You will have seen that we get goldfinches regularly, pretty little birds aren't they?

Good Morning Everybody.

I know it's only January but I have noticed that the Blackbirds and Robins are pairing up. We were also watching a male Blackbird yesterday collecting nesting material . They know something we don't, we don't give them enough credit. Last time I saw them behaving like this in January we had a very hot summer.

Hope you are all okay.
Take Care.
Shaun

Hope you are right Shaun, we could do with a good summer this year.

I have seen flocks of redwing feasting on berries today. We still have our robins, blackbirds, bluetits, probably the goldfinch as the sunflower seed is going down and the wood pigeons too.

They seem fine with the feeding station and it is nice to see them close to the house too. So my ideal gift at Christmas.

Linda xxx <3 <3 <3

Shaun I do so hope the birds are right.

Linda that is great that they accepted the feeding station so easily, well done. Years since I have seen a flock of red wing.

I did see a red kite on Saturday as we were travelling down the A34 towards the M3.

A lot of the birds here seem to be pairing up too,and those naughty W Pidgeons are at it all the time on the top of the trellis :-| :-D

The Red Kites are back in good numbers by the look of it.I see them everyday at the moment :-D :-D

Now a hot summer! That would be nice.Not too hot though please.