Influx of Blackbirds (1 Viewer)

Just in the last week, we have been getting more avian visitors even than during the coldest part of the winter (including a pair of goldfinches which turn up at breakfast time and always put a smile on my four-year-old's face ). What has been really striking, however, is the sudden influx of blackbirds. We had three regular visitors - two males and a female - which I assumed were a pair and last year's fledgling. Now we have anything up to six extra ones, all rather brown and a bit smaller than the "regulars". This is in a classic pocket-handkerchief north London back garden. Have they been forced away from normal feeding grounds by bad weather, or are they incomers from across the Channel, or what?

I've noticed the same. The last couple of weeks, I have had up to 15, possibly more in the garden. Lots of chaffinches too. The greenfinches are also reappearing.

I guess a large part of this is due to food availability. This time of year the stocks of winter food are dissapearing and the Spring foods are not yet available.

I throw out some sultanas at the moment which seem to go down well with the thrush family.

Same here in Cheltenham - we've gone from having 3 regular blackbirds, to a maximum of 16 (spotted earlier today). They even seem to have called a truce from their normally fairly aggressive behaviour - although I could do without the alarm calls at 6:00am.

Chaffinches too, are increasing in numbers, with anything up to 20 on the ground at any one go - and the pair of bullfinches have turned into 3 males & 2 females.

On the other hand, the greenfinches appear to be dwindling as do the blackcaps (haven't seen any of these for a few days now). The tits (blue, great & coal) seem to be maintaining fairly steady numbers.

Sleeper said:

I throw out some sultanas at the moment which seem to go down well with the thrush family.

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Top tip! I went and added a good handful of sultanas to the ground-feeder mix, and the blackies went wild for them! I think they like them more than dried mealworms. These were primo "six crown" Aussie sultanas, which may be spoiling them a bit.. ;-)

Gate said:

Top tip! I went and added a good handful of sultanas to the ground-feeder mix, and the blackies went wild for them! I think they like them more than dried mealworms. These were primo "six crown" Aussie sultanas, which may be spoiling them a bit.. ;-)

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Hi Gate. you can never spoil em! they also love grapes, apples, plums, mixed of course!!! numbers our end about the same, but chaffinches.blue-great tits well down on last year. Keep up the sultanas.

Hi all

I find that Sultanas at most bird food shops far to expensive but at the local supermarket they are approx 40p per 500g so i find this well worth it although i am now up to 20 bags a week.........don't let my better half here this though!

AnnieW said:

On the other hand, the greenfinches appear to be dwindling as do the blackcaps (haven't seen any of these for a few days now). The tits (blue, great & coal) seem to be maintaining fairly steady numbers.

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I take it back ... have just looked out to see 6 blackcaps (looks like 3 pairs), 20+ greenfinches and more chaffinches than you can shake a stick at (strange expression, never understood it). None of them look particaulrly happy though - they don't like the constant stream of low flying helicopters; it's causing much nervousness.

Annie

Oooer Annie, you aren't near me are you, cos a low flying helicopter has just come over here, scared away most of my birds, and sent the dog wild! She hates them, its comical seeing her trying to chase the things!

On the subject of sultanas, I use the turkish variety, cheap but tasty (I eat loads of them) My blackbirds are down on them almost before I have walked away in the mornings. As far as I know, I only have three, most I have ever seen at once anyway, one male (black) and then I have brownbird orange beak, and brownbird brown beak as I call them (presumably a first winter male?)

songbird said:

Oooer Annie, you aren't near me are you, cos a low flying helicopter has just come over here, scared away most of my birds, and sent the dog wild! She hates them, its comical seeing her trying to chase the things!

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Not as far as I'm aware (especially as your location says Wales). I'm about half a mile (as the helicopter flys) from Prestbury Park Racecourse - where the Cheltenham Gold Cup will be kicking off in approx 30.mins. There's a helicopter park in the field behind the house, so for the last 3 days there have been helisopters passing overhead every couple of minutes through the morning (going one way) and ditto in the evening (going t'other). The birds don't like this particularly (can't say I'm overly fond of it either). Strangely the dog's not too bad but give it a few weeks and they start flying hot air baloons from the same field ..... drives him crazy; almost lost him a few times - he always believes he can catch them and develops super-canine powers to leap fences, crawl through hedges etc !!

Never tried sultanas with the birds - I must give it a go. I have, however, discovered that both blackbirds & thrushes like over-ripe bananas. These do , however, cause some hazzards - I spotted one blackbird yesterday that had managed to impale it's beak completely through a piece and was having the greatest of difficulty getting it off - from a ditance it looked like some strange overly large beak piercing ornamentation !!

Annie

Our Blackbirds have sorted themseves out. Now we have two females carrying nest materials into a 10ft high Lleylandii hedge ( One at each end of it)