Hobbies and Crafts

Since being away our garden birds have deserted us we had blue tits looking in the bird house thought they were going to breed &all sorts coal tits sparrows finches.
Great tits Blackbirds still coming
& robin.pheasant every morning .how am I going to get them back maybe have to wait & Hope they return. Barbara

We have had wood pigeons .crows .collared Doves but no sm birds.?

I am sure they will be back Barbara.Have you been away for a while? I always worry when we are away and there is no-one to put food out for the birds(I just have the window feeder now) but as soon as we get home and I fill the feeder they are soon back :-D

Thank you Jane .I have cleaned the feeders & put clean water out
fingers crossed they come back
:-) :-)

The birds will come back Barbara. I’ve had a couple of spells when they seem to have deserted us but they come back again.

At the moment there are plenty of sparrows and blackbirds, a few bluetits, occasionally a great tit. We also have a thrush coming regularly and a robin. I was never sure if there was only one robin or whether I was only seeing one at a time and there were more. Well, today I saw two together pecking at the mealworms :-)

This will please you Jane, or maybe not. I’ve been reading that many birds are decreasing in numbers but magpies are increasing :-(

No doubt when we get home the birds will yet again have deserted us. They will come back Barbra, it may be that there is sufficient natural food around for them

Have you had any birds back yet Barbara? They will I am sure they will find their way back. Maybe like Ann says there is plenty of food around for them at the moment.

Vera ,Magpie(s) is a rude word in this household at the moment. They are a real nuisance :-| :-|..I keep expecting to find eggs from the Woodpigeons nest on the ground .Maybe the eggs have hatched though as I sometimes hear what I think could be a baby up in the conifer.
The Green Woodpecker has just been having a feast on the lawn :-D. There are probably plenty of Ants now .

Jane the trouble with magpies is that they will take baby birds as well as eggs horrid birds.

Strangely, I haven't seen or heard so many magpies yet this year.
In the past, we have had blackbirds shrieking at them as the bigger birds launched their raids on the nest.
So sad to see that.

This week I saw 2 moorhens with their little chicks.
One of the mums jumped in the water, but her babies didn't follow her, so after a while she climbed back up the bank and joined them in rooting about on the grass.

Sad news about the swans.
I walked along the path next to their nest and was shocked to see 2 eggs, still whole but alone in the nest. There was no sign of the parent swans anywhere. I will ask around locally and see if I can find out what has happened.

Hello All not many birds about yet the odd sparrow one robin .blue tits just coming & going only a couple though .as you say there is plenty of midges.& I am sure the bushes & plants are full of little meals for our birds.hope you are alright .let you know if I get anymore visitors x Barbara x

Bet our birds have left us since we have been away. Will find out tomorrow.

Gwyn that is sad about the swans. Unusual for them to abandon eggs unless they have been attacked.

Swan Update..... I have just been speaking with a friend, who told me that the swans had 9 eggs in total.
I'm not sure what happened to all of them, as obviously some must have not been viable and were abandoned, but the parents are successfully rearing 3 fine cygnets and the family all venture out for fairly lengthy swims, so are often seen at some distance from the nest.

I will have to walk that way at various times of day in the hope of seeing them.

That’s lovely to hear Gwyn. I hope you get to see them.

Hope you see the Swan family soon x not many birds in our back garden yet we have had a couple of Sparrow Hawks about so maybe that's why no sm birds. A couple of Black Birds singing to each in the trees like little sir echo lovely to listen to them Take Care Bye For Now Barbara

Nice to hear that there are at least 3 Sygnets . Sad that there are just the 3 though.

We have the Jay here swooping in every now and again on the window feeder. Not quite so many Magpies at the moment :-)

Lovely to see the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on the window feeder today :-D :-D It has been a while since I have seen one.

Oh great Jane to see the woodpecker.

We don’t have so many magpies these days although two is more than enough.
I did read that magpies, starlings and sparrows were in decline because of the way we buy specialist bird food rather than feeding scraps as we used to. And goldfinches are on the increase.

The Woodpecker is still a visitor many times a day on the window feeder :-D. I have to stay very still though as one movement from me and it is off.
We just had a Duck fly over the house :-D

I haven't seen a woodpecker for ages near here.

Last week I saw the swan family quite a distance from their nest, but wasn't sure it was them. By chance I met a friend another day out walking and she said that she'd just seen the family on their nest, so I walked that way to look. When I neared the spot, I saw them serenely gliding along the water having just left their base. They were the same sizes as the one's I'd seen earlier in the week, so I think they are happily covering a wider area now.

Yesterday I saw mum mallard with her offspring. She had 6 and some of them were almost as big as her, so hopefully have a good chance of surviving now. The youngsters were having a great time darting about feeding and making trails in the duck weed topping the water.

Walking the dog this morning saw a wonderful aerobatic display by about a dozen swallows over the bondu (waste ground). They were swooping just above us, my dog thought she might catch one, they were too quick for her and she wears a muzzle :-D :-D :-D