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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What nested in your garden? (1 Viewer)

I love this kind of question....it just fasinates me the different species of birds all around the world that choose to let us mere humans help them out!
My own yard hosted Eastern Bluebirds for the first time this year
4 fledged, 1 brood
Tree Swallow, 4 fledge
Chipping sparrow 1st nesting victim to the cowbird then abandoned -pair hung but don't know if it started up again
Song sparrow 3(?) fledged
House wren, late nesting, (unknown how many are still making noise in the box)
Robins, Robins, Robins (American ones) They are flocking in the tree tops like the crows do...huge successful season for them.
Black-capped chickadee 3 fledged
Cardinal 3 fledged in 2 nestings (1st one destroyed by dog and flood)
Mallards 10 hatched, 9 survive after 1st swim day, 0 survived after day 3... assume same butt head of a neighbor dog that got loose and thought she found some toys to play with??
Scrub line hosted mourning doves
Coopers Hawk, 1 fledge and hunting in the open
Deer (2 fawns, born late in season)
Shelley
 
That's a lot of birds (and deer)! I am thinking of helping out the Starlings and House sparrows with some nestboxes (in the UK they are in decline - apparently not in USA!)
 
tp20uk said:
That's a lot of birds (and deer)! I am thinking of helping out the Starlings and House sparrows with some nestboxes (in the UK they are in decline - apparently not in USA!)
Click to expand...

GADS!!! I nearly choked when I read this one!!!
Many bluebirders are trapping House Sparrows....bet they would gladly shuck out the dollars to ship them back!!!!
Put out the cheapest seed (milo and filler) bread bits and suet with corn (starlings and and house sparrows go bonkers for cracked corn)....your numbers will boost in no time, and yes, if you don't want to pay attention to history, put up nest boxes with large enough holes for the little buggers to use....they also love martin houses and your numbers will increase. Good luck
Helps to have open farmland around and scrub lines!
**cough, gasp, cough
Shelley
ps-- hope pduxon didn't catch this, he favors the little (hosp) survivors, too.
 
I counted 15 juvenile house sparrows hutched up on the bird table yesterday and more waiting for clearance to land. Hopefully my overgrown garden is doing its bit for the 'spadger' population round here. The starlings also seem to have lots of noisy adolescents doing well here. I know these are not exiting but I feel as though I am 'doing my bit'.
 
Shelley - just ship a load out to me please. I'm lucky to see more than two or three at a time here now, and the special 3 apartment nestbox wasn't used last year. I don't think it's been used this year either, though I haven't looked inside it yet.
 
Our garden has done well for sparrows this year, but I really can't remember the last Starling I saw. Blackbirds, Robins, Dunnocks, Collared Doves and Woodies, yes, but no Starlings. We used to have loads of them elbowing spuggies off the bird table, but not now.
 
Well, I've just spotted another juvenile robin. Loads of them. There were a pair of spotted flycatchers in the garden for ages, but not sure if they nested.

Also had pair of bullfinches, then along came the juvenile, which was nice to see.

At the moment, have a pair of woodpigeons sitting on a nest not far from where I am sitting typing this, and another pigeon sitting on another nest at the other side of the house!
 
I was getting 8 or 9 juvenile starlings a couple of months ago, squabbling over the food on the bird table, but recently it's down to one or two - occasionally.
 
There were at lest 15 starlings around a month ago here, then they all disappeared. now there are three or four. all but 2 house sparrows vanished.
 
Elizabeth Bigg said:
Shelley - just ship a load out to me please. I'm lucky to see more than two or three at a time here now, and the special 3 apartment nestbox wasn't used last year. I don't think it's been used this year either, though I haven't looked inside it yet.
Click to expand...

Elizabeth,
I am a birder first and formost but I do (like everyone else) have my favorites and dislikes and with all kidding aside, I take a passive approach to HOSP control (selective seed and feeders, house boxes and monitoring) but I do know of many BB society members that take an active and aggressive approach (trapping).
It seems so incredibly easy to 'breed' the house sparrow here, which prefer free easy handouts and stay where there are people or open grain bins. They nest like crazy in the signs outside stores, even!!!! Cheap seed, with cracked corn, peanut bits are on their hit parade. They don't eat as much sunflower seed as you would think, and the LOVE mealworms. Neighbor across the street has a martin house....never had a purple martin in it, the house sparrows take over first thing in late winter/early spring!
Shelley
ps--wonder how difficult it would be to send some back? :bounce:
 
tp20uk said:
I dont think they take many mealworms in the UK.
Click to expand...

Sparrows take mealworms here, whenever they get the chance. Unlike the bluetits they can collect a few at a time, so when we put some out they sometimes vanish before the bluetits get a look-in!
 
Elizabeth Bigg said:
Sparrows take mealworms here, whenever they get the chance. Unlike the bluetits they can collect a few at a time, so when we put some out they sometimes vanish before the bluetits get a look-in!
Click to expand...

That's how it is at my house, too.
The bluebirds always get inline first, sparrows dance around, but really can't get a good dig in until the BB leaves....then watch out!!! They gobble them up like no tomorrow! The only bird to the mealworm feeder that beats them is the Blue Jay!!! In the mean time, the little chickadee waits patiently just to grap his one and dash to return only to wait in line again!!!
I've heard starlings are much like the HOSP when it comes to meal worms, but they haven't checked out that feeder, yet.
No noise at the wren box, don't know when the little guys fledged or how many. The goldfinches over the fence are finishing up their nesting period, I haven't seen any fledglings to the feeders, yet....but both males and females are about all day long.
That's it for me and babies...... till next spring ;)
 
Sorry to be so late coming to this thread, but have only just joined the forum.

We had Great Tits use the nest box, after a turf war with Blue Tits, who used next door's box instead. Did not see them fledge, I was at work! Plenty of evidence of other nesting birds, but not in our garden, though they gathered lots of 'soft furnishing' from us. For second year running, however, we had swifts nest above our bathroom ceiling. Contrary to experience elsewhere, this nest site was created by building work and a new roof on the house. When the builders rendered the bathroom wall they must have left a tiny hole under the eaves which was somehow spotted by the swifts (I wish I knew how) and they have now twice used it succesfully.

This week I put a new box in a bush hoping to attract some of the numerous robins in the area. By next spring I also want some of the 14 House Sparrows I feed, nesting.


Rob
 
I just saw a fairly recently fledged Cedar Waxwing this evening, so I think that the waxwings nested somewhere in my neighborhood this year.
 
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