What's in your garden? (1 Viewer)

Euan Buchan · Jul 2, 2004

In my garden right now there are lots of Blue Tit's on the squerril proof feeder and 2 on the little wooden feeder some have been in the birdbath drinking away and splashing about. Good news no Mr squrril has appeeard as yet but if he does I'll chase him off. So my garden at the momentis teaming with Tit's.

mountain man · Jul 2, 2004

Euan,

I've just tried the link to your John Lennon website, but I think you've got a spelling mistake...

Did you mean "blueyonder" instead of "blueyobder"?

Euan Buchan · Jul 2, 2004

tom mckinney said:
Euan,

I've just tried the link to your John Lennon website, but I think you've got a spelling mistake...

Did you mean "blueyonder" instead of "blueyobder"?

Just changed the spelling mistake

mountain man · Jul 2, 2004

Cheers Euan, it works now.

joser · Jul 2, 2004

This week ive had 6 blue tits, 2 great tits, 1 coal tit and 6 long-tailed tits in the garden. Not all at the same time though!!

birdman · Jul 2, 2004

My garden list is still very small, but in the last couple of days or so, we seem to have been discovered by a House Sparrow!

Euan Buchan · Jul 2, 2004

Had some Great Tit's on the feeder awhile ago

plaxtonman · Jul 2, 2004

Living on the edge of a city, I didn't expect too much from the garden here, but we have farmland next door, so my garden list is at 54 so far. Includes Merlin (which landed in the garden and walked around for a while), Little Owl (which sat on my seed hopper 6ft from the window), and after a heavy rainstorm recently 66 Greenfinches landed!

Presently as I look out, we've got Tree Sparrows, House Sparrows, Starlings, Yellowhammer, Greenfinch, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Dunnock, Bullfinch, Great/Blue and Coal Tits, Chaffinches, oh and the Great Spotted Woodpecker is on the nut feeder!

Just shows you what you can get with a small garden in a semi-urban setting.

Keep us posted with what's in your garden Euan, you never know what'll drop in!

Steve

Elizabeth Bigg · Jul 2, 2004

Euan - while I was out today, collecting yet another 25kg sack of sunflower hearts, my husband spotted a group of 10 adult and juvenile greenfinches on the various hanging feeders suspended from a single pole. A little while later, a sparrowhawk swooped over the hedge at the bottom of the garden - but having failed to catch anything, continued towards the patio doors then swerved upwards, leaving an impressive imprint on the glass.

Just recently we counted 8 goldfinches on the hearts and niger feeders, 5 blackbirds on the lawn and numerous blue and great tits on the various feeders. Then a little later there were 8 jackdaws on the ground.

(Our garden is about 50' square, but it is surrounded by mature hedges and trees).

Must go now to sort out an overdaft to buy more food for the hordes! :eek!:

goplaces · Jul 2, 2004

Euan Buchan said:
In my garden right now there are lots of Blue Tit's on the squerril proof feeder and 2 on the little wooden feeder some have been in the birdbath drinking away and splashing about. Good news no Mr squrril has appeeard as yet but if he does I'll chase him off. So my garden at the momentis teaming with Tit's.

Daily: masses of blue tits and great tits, long tailed tits, greenfinches, chaffinches, wood pigeons, collared doves, blackbirds, song thrush, starlings, crow, magpies, jay, green woodpecker, great spotted woodpeckers, House sparrow, dunnock, robin, wren.
Occasionally: goldfinches, blackcap, sparrow hawk, willow warbler, brambling, linnet and once had a barn owl and a pheasant ( not at the same time ).

Hotspur · Jul 2, 2004

Today I have had swift, swallow, housemartin (all nesting/roosting), yellowhammer, chaffinch, tree sparrow, house sparrow, song thrush, greenfinch, goldfinch, blackbird, carrion crow, rook, dunnock, woodpigeon, skylark, blue tit, little owl and something very yellow that i couldnt figure.

James

craig whitmore · Jul 2, 2004

Hotspur said:
Today I have had swift, swallow, housemartin (all nesting/roosting), yellowhammer, chaffinch, tree sparrow, house sparrow, song thrush, greenfinch, goldfinch, blackbird, carrion crow, rook, dunnock, woodpigeon, skylark, blue tit, little owl and something very yellow that i couldnt figure.

James

Today slews of goldfinches,housefinches, 3 black headed grosbeaks, spoptted towhee, california towhee, annas hummingbirds, black chinned hummingbirds, stellars and scrub jays. wb nuthatchs, junco, and wonder of wonders, A HEN WILD TURKEY. B

songbird6666 · Jul 2, 2004

Elizabeth Bigg said:
Euan - while I was out today, collecting yet another 25kg sack of sunflower hearts

May I ask how long this sack will last you? I ran out yesterday, it has lasted me two days short of three weeks, and cost me £20. Added to which I am buying a 20kg sack of Wild bird seed, and 25kg of Mixed poultry corn, and 13kg black sunflower seeds fortnightly! 25kg of Peanuts lasts about a month. I think it must be upward of £20 a week, oh plus a bag of sultanas every week for my blackbird hen, and around three loaves of brown bread!

So the most birds I have in the garden at any one time is around 14-16 greenfinches, same amount of chaffinches, about 25+ house sparrows, 8 bluetits, 8 great tits, 4 goldfinches (two babies this week!) 2 blackbirds, 5 siskins, 10 collared doves, a couple of rooks, and wait for it ..... 45+ Jackdaws! It is probably nearer 55 but hard to count the swarm. The other afternoon, there was the most amazing flock circling overhead, more than 100 of them, and I was praying that they would pass over! (They did, thankfully) They are wiping out a huge feeder full of corn (for my three chickens) and a massive bowl of wild bird seed in under an hour. And the sparrows are munching their way through the sunflower hearts.

Help!

Ben Dickinson · Jul 3, 2004

Anyone else found that Blue tits and Great tits have done really well this year? There's been far more younger birds in the garden this year than any other year I can remember. And my local woods were teeming with young blue, great and long-tailed tits!

Michael Frankis · Jul 3, 2004

Hi Ben,

Seems to be true here too, though last year here was also OK, in contrast to I gather many other parts of the country

Michael

John P · Jul 3, 2004

In my garden right at this minute -- absolutely nothing -- cos the Sparrowhawk has just been through. :eek!:

snowyowl · Jul 3, 2004

songbird said:
May I ask how long this sack will last you? I ran out yesterday, it has lasted me two days short of three weeks, and cost me £20. Added to which I am buying a 20kg sack of Wild bird seed, and 25kg of Mixed poultry corn, and 13kg black sunflower seeds fortnightly! 25kg of Peanuts lasts about a month. I think it must be upward of £20 a week, oh plus a bag of sultanas every week for my blackbird hen, and around three loaves of brown bread!

So the most birds I have in the garden at any one time is around 14-16 greenfinches, same amount of chaffinches, about 25+ house sparrows, 8 bluetits, 8 great tits, 4 goldfinches (two babies this week!) 2 blackbirds, 5 siskins, 10 collared doves, a couple of rooks, and wait for it ..... 45+ Jackdaws! It is probably nearer 55 but hard to count the swarm. The other afternoon, there was the most amazing flock circling overhead, more than 100 of them, and I was praying that they would pass over! (They did, thankfully) They are wiping out a huge feeder full of corn (for my three chickens) and a massive bowl of wild bird seed in under an hour. And the sparrows are munching their way through the sunflower hearts.

Help!

Wow! That sound very expensive. I was wondering why people are feeding sunflower hearts, which are very expensive, instead of just using Black-oil Sunflower seeds. Do you find that you get more species that way?
During the winter I feed both types of sunflower but I think that next year I'll skip the Gray-striped Sunflower because they don't draw any extra species. I also feed Niger and a finch mix. Both of those are fairly expensive. On my platform feeder I put a cheap mixed feed that seems to keep some species like House Sparrows away from the more expensive seeds.
I don't mind spending money for seed but do like to get the best bang for my buck.

Euan Buchan · Jul 3, 2004

Had a Sparrowhauk today in the garden and all the Tits fllewd as they would but it was nice to see a Sparrowhawk

Elizabeth Bigg · Jul 3, 2004

Songbird - that is an absolutely amazing number of birds, there wouldn't be room to move if I had so many in my small garden. I last bought hearts on 27th February (again a 25kg sack) and the price is £18.30 - I doubt if it will last as long this time though, because there are so many young birds around at the moment. I'm sure the ground feeding birds would eat more if I provided it, but I only put food out for them once a day - when that is gone, they have to go and look elsewhere!

Snowyowl - I buy hearts because the birds like them, and anyway I have just calculated that the price is more or less the same as that of black sunflower seeds. Since there is no waste from hearts (and no mess, of course) then they are the better buy - I'm glad your comment made me check on this!!! This is probably because the best place for me to buy the black sunflower seeds is in 15kg sacks at a pet shop, but the hearts come in 25kg sacks from an animal feeds warehouse.

snowyowl · Jul 4, 2004

Elizabeth Bigg said:
Snowyowl - I buy hearts because the birds like them, and anyway I have just calculated that the price is more or less the same as that of black sunflower seeds. Since there is no waste from hearts (and no mess, of course) then they are the better buy - I'm glad your comment made me check on this!!! This is probably because the best place for me to buy the black sunflower seeds is in 15kg sacks at a pet shop, but the hearts come in 25kg sacks from an animal feeds warehouse.

Thanks, Elizabeth. It sounds like I should do some cost comparisons myself.
I buy Black-oil Sunflower seed at my local feed store for anywhere from $14.95 to $21.95 plus tax for 20 kg depending on the year. That's in Canadian $. Ths year was good as it was $14.95 all winter. So that's about 6 - 8 Brirish pounds per sack?
The other concern for me is the Blue Jays/Grackle problem. They can empty a large tube feeder of B-oiled in a day very easily. I wonder what would happen with the hearts?

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