Hobbies and Crafts

Goodness, it's really windy here now, with heavy showers! We have a loan blackbird on our fence who seems unable to fly as everytime it tries take off it just gets blown around and it just can't get anywhere at all! Poor thing!!!!!

Haven't seen too many small birds here these last couple of days. They will have been like your Blackbird Pippyn and struggled to get anywhere. Seagulls though seem to be a different matter. Something must be going on in the fields as we are about as far from the sea as you can get.. Just love the sound of a Gull though.It brings back childhood memories :-D

About a month ago I wrote about the problems I was having with seed feeders. Something was managing to tip ALL the seeds out on to the ground without moving the feeder. I stopped putting out seeds. There have been no problems with the feeders with fat balls, peanuts or Niger seeds.

Today I decided to try putting seeds out again, just half filling the container. Same thing. It looks as though I have hung an empty feeder up. Nothing is dislodged, it’s not moved on the bough, it’s all tightly screwed together but it is completely empty and the seeds are on the ground. I can’t see how a squirrel or a cat could throw every single seed out without moving the feeder. Also in the 6 years we have lived here I have not seen a single squirrel and I really don’t think a cat could do it.

HELP. Have we got a mischievous birdie ghost?

I reckon it is quite likely to be a Squirrel Vera even though you haven't spotted one. We had the same problem with a feeder I had down the garden and like you all the seeds were on the ground.The same did happen with the Niger Seed feeder.I can't think what else it could be if not a Squirrel. How strange though. Spooky :-D

I still haven't put the window feeder back up on my lounge window so we have no little visitors right close to the house now. I do miss them but not the mess left by the Woodpigeons as they would pick up all the dropped food and poop all over the place. OH was getting so fed up having to hose down the patio everyday.Even getting to the washing line was like walking through a minefield of poo :-S

You are probably right Jane. A squirrel is the only likely explanation but I am blowed if I can see how it manages to totally empty the feeder of seeds without dislodging or unscrewing it in any way at all.

Weird things regularly happen to us. We had a dustpan and brush hanging up in the garage and a few months ago the brush went walkabout. OH and I have both separately turned that garage upside down and we are in and out all the time because we use half of it as a shed, so all our gardening stuff and all OH’s tools are in there. Yesterday OH went in and on a shelf opposite the door and in full view was the brush, on top of stuff we have used regularly :-S. How strange is that?

Wonderful sight yesterday . 6 Red Kites flying so low over a counrty road I was driving along, They could not have been more than 30ft above me. If I had not had a car behind me I would have pulled over and got a video of them. It was quite something to see :-D

Wow Jane Yes that must have been quite a sight to see, how lovely. :-)

It was Ann. I was just disappointed I could not get a video clip of them.
Nothing much to report in our garden bird wise. It is all very quiet. We did have a Hawk yesterday that flew over the garden and all the little birds went into hiding. It all went silent for a while .

I drove along the same road today where I saw all those Red Kites and once again they were there :-D. One came so low it was only a few feet above my car !
I wish I had more to report re birds in the garden but it all seems very quiet. The Wood Pigeons of course are always here and enjoying sitting and bathing in the Birdbath :-D I just wish they didn't use it as a toilet :-S

Lovely to see the kites Jane. I haven’t got anything to report birdwise either. It seems very quiet here. The mealworms I put out seem to disappear so something is eating them but the other feeders are not going down very much. Even the frogs seem to have left home.

In fact the only thing in the garden seems to be a small tortoiseshell cat which frightens the life out of me every time I go near one particular corner. It seems to like lurking in the undergrowth there but if I go near it leaps out really suddenly, climbs up the fence and disappears. I haven’t a clue who it belongs to.

At 5am this morning I was woken by a real screaming noise just outside my bedroom window. I have to admit it scared the wotsits out of me. I thought someone was being atacked . It was an Owl !!! Once I realised that I was fine. But my word what a noise it was. I hope it doesn't do the same tonight. It was just so close. We often hear Owls but just not as close as this. I thought about getting out of bed to see if i coudl get a pic but it was too dark.

I have just had the Sparrowhawk perch about 10 feet away from me while I was hanging out the washing. I always know when it is about as all the smaller birds fall silent and the sparrows dive into the holly tree. They are not even safe in there as I have seen the Hawk fly in and grab one :-(. The Hawks are such beautiful creatures and what hunting skills they have.

I’m not sure I would like to be that close to a sparrowhawk LaGooner. In our last house I did have one fly down in front of me and take a young starling from the lawn but I was standing at the kitchen window so had a sheet of glass between us. They are beautiful birds and I know it is all part of nature’s chain but their beaks and talons give me the shivers.

I haven’t been on the thread much lately because there has been nothing to report. There was one lonely long tailed tit on the peanuts a couple of days ago but it hasn’t been back. I expect there will be more birds around when it gets more wintry and they are looking for food.

I have no qualms about being near them Vera. My son's partner worked at a bird of prey centre and I got the chance of handling all sorts. She has a pet Tawny Owl he is gorgeous. All the small birds fell silent earlier so I am guessing it was near by but I didn't see it.

I love looking at hawks and especially owls. However I find sparrow hawks so cruel doing what comes naturally to them that I find I am a bit ambivilent about them. I suppose it is because they take the garden birds we feed.

Our visitor goes after the pigeons too which I am grateful for as they are getting to be a noisy nuisance in this area.

The swallows have gone! One minute they were flying round and round our bungalow like little fighter planes, by evening, they'd gathered on the wires, the following day they'd gone! We just hope they'll be ok and return safely next summer! :-\ :-)

I have hardly seen a bird lately. I filled feeders just before we went away for a few days and they have only gone down a little bit. Presumably they are still finding enough to eat elsewhere but I haven’t even noticed them flying across the garden. We are a bird free zone :-(

We have nowhere near as many as we had Vera. We do have some great and blue tits and a few collard doves oh and some sparrows but no blackbirds, robins, goldfinches yet. Hopefully they will return with the cold weather.

Ooh such excitement. We actually had a coal tit on the feeder this morning plus a few Great tits.