No porridge oats for the birds here but then we don't get blackbirds in the feeder area. However, we have just been visited by a peregrine. It swooped into my kitchen bay shrub and missed and then tried to sort of hop, nonchalantly, ever closer to the feeders. Our tits and sparrows were having none of it.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Nothing as dramatic as a peregrine here, just the usually crew - blue & great tits, goldfinches, robin, male and female chaffinches, green finch, blackbirds, grey pied wagtail crows, gulls and pigeons. We haven't seen a wren or thrush in ages, in fact the last thrush was over a year ago - they never ate from the feeders anyway.
Just wanted to ask for advice as to when stop feeding birds whole peanuts. I read somewhere that when they feed their babies there is a danger of the young ones to choke on the whole peanuts or other large seeds. So how long is it safe to fill up the feeder (open type, where they can get the whole nut)? Thank you!
Any peanuts I have left over from the winter ( mine are in feeders) I don't waste at this time of year, I take a handful a day and crush them putting some out on the ground every other day until they are used up. Small enough amount so as not to encourage rodents and get eaten in one day.🙂
Scottish birds love porridge oats... I used to use pinhead oatmeal for the birds, when I bought stuff separately [pre internet] as the robin mixes have it in them. Although I have peanuts in hanging feeders, I put some peanuts out on the ground feeder, until about end of March. It's quite entertaining watching the crows compete with the magpies to see who can get the most in their beak at one go. They do it with the cheese too Tufty and his pal eat them too, as well as all the blackbirds.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Not on a feeder, but my bird moment was on Thursday. I saw a small murmuration of starlings flying about and they formed into a really dense black ball of birds then it split in two and a sparrowhawk chased one bird straight across the field towards me . At the last second the starling darted to one side and the sparrowhawk went up and over the hedge about a metre in front of the windscreen.
Today I saw a Blackcap. He didn't seem to like the feeders, they were swaying about a bit. So he went onto the fence and ate ivy berries instead. At the moment we seem to have blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits and the occasional coal tit. Finches seem to be in short supply. The robin follows me around the garden, and a blackbird likes to untidy the place by chucking leaves around.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I used to use pinhead oatmeal for the birds, when I bought stuff separately [pre internet] as the robin mixes have it in them.
Although I have peanuts in hanging feeders, I put some peanuts out on the ground feeder, until about end of March. It's quite entertaining watching the crows compete with the magpies to see who can get the most in their beak at one go.
They do it with the cheese too
Tufty and his pal eat them too, as well as all the blackbirds.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I saw a small murmuration of starlings flying about and they formed into a really dense black ball of birds then it split in two and a sparrowhawk chased one bird straight across the field towards me . At the last second the starling darted to one side and the sparrowhawk went up and over the hedge about a metre in front of the windscreen.