Where have all our garden birds gone?

[rodshaw]

Recently there's been a blue tit showing interest in our bird box. It went in once and stayed a while, but mostly it seems to like hanging round the outside seemingly pecking at the rim of the hole. When I went to look there are indeed peck marks round the rim. Does it like the wood or is it trying to widen the hole?

Edited January 30, 2021 by rodshaw

[jbqfc]

well that's this year big garden bird watch done

house sparrow 8

starling 6

blackbird 1

blue tit 1

goldfinch 6

great tit 1

 

and as is normal the long tail tits turned up just after we finished 

 

John 

[Hal Nail]

7 minutes ago, jbqfc said:

well that's this year big garden bird watch done

house sparrow 8

starling 6

blackbird 1

blue tit 1

goldfinch 6

great tit 1

 

and as is normal the long tail tits turned up just after we finished 

 

John 

I'd be happy with that. Most of the time I get very little going on but occassionally several groups of species all together. I'm not sure if they attract each other or just means conditions were good generally.

[88D]

I have never seen a sparrow or starling in our garden, and this birdwatch continued in the same vein. The list included 6 Great Tits, 2 Blue Tits, 2 Coal Tits, 2 crows, 2 Magpie, 4 Jackdaw, 2 Robin, Chaffinch, 2 Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Wood Pigeon, 2 Blackbird, Song Thrush, Dunnock, and 2 Bullfinch - first I’ve seen in months! Annoyingly, 2 GSW and 20+ Fieldfare turned up just after I submitted the form. Hey ho, good to see them.

[hmrspaul]

Does anyone else think the birds deliberately disappear for this weekend. I've never seen so few tits in my garden - yes a few blue but I don't think a Great or a Coal has been in all weekend, let alone Long tailed - which can come through in family groups. We never have anything unusual but the 9 Collared doves have disappeared, the Magpies didn't come near..... No Wren, no Goldfinch. 

 

Paul

[Hal Nail]

7 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Does anyone else think the birds deliberately disappear for this weekend.

The ringed parakeets were conspicuous by their absence. No doubt having masked the extent of their world takeover by avoiding the survey, they will be back in numbers today.

 

Actually on a serious note I have hardly seen a Goldfinch this year. Will be interesting to see how their numbers are holding up.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Hal Nail

[Jol Wilkinson]

Since moving about ten miles to a house half a mile from the sea, the birds frequenting our garden are totally different. Originally  we saw blue, longtail or great tits, dunnocks, goldfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, magpies, pheasants, an occasional wren plus a canary. 

 

Since moving we now only see sparrows, woodpigeons and gulls, some starling, an occasional robin and blackbird. My wife has as many feeders as we had before, mainly with "wild bird" mixed feed. The area is  coastal suburban rather than countryside as before, with the obvious main difference being a lack of trees, although we have large hedges where the sparrows nest. 

[boxbrownie]

42 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Since moving about ten miles to a house half a mile from the sea, the birds frequenting our garden are totally different. Originally  we saw blue, longtail or great tits, dunnocks, goldfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, magpies, pheasants, an occasional wren plus a canary. 

 

Since moving we now only see sparrows, woodpigeons and gulls, some starling, an occasional robin and blackbird. My wife has as many feeders as we had before, mainly with "wild bird" mixed feed. The area is  coastal suburban rather than countryside as before, with the obvious main difference being a lack of trees, although we have large hedges where the sparrows nest. 

That’s interesting, since moving here five years ago we are now literally 70 yards from the sea and see more garden birds than we ever did in Essex which was a countryside town, we see birds here we never saw like Wrens, Goldfinch, and even have 3 resident Pheasants in the hedge, the one bird we get hardly any of is the Gulls, they tend to stick to the local town where of course they get fed by the tourists (although food from tourists has been a lot less over the past year!).....we did get two baby gulls stuck in the garden last year as their first flight from a roof got them stuck in our garden, one flew off after a few days the second smaller one stayed longer trying to fly every day......until one day we found him in the garden room looking out into the garden, he must have wandered in the front door, through the hall, lounge, dining room and into the garden room......cheeky little bu99er......I had to open a window to let him out, those Gulls, even the babies are massive close up! 

[jonny777]

I have a theory, and it can be summed up in two words... 

 

Wood pigeons. 

 

However, my full theory tends to be long - spoiler warning. 

 

I partake in the BTO garden birdwatch scheme. It is an all year round affair with weekly inputs - not just one weekend in January. I have been contributing records since it started in 1995. 

 

Here is a graph of the annual recorded level of wood pigeons in gardens of BTO contributors showing 1995 levels of wood pigeons (blue line). The grey line is the 1995-2020 average. 

 

 

 

Here is a similar graph showing the 2020 levels of wood pigeons as the blue line. 

 

 

 

In a perfect world, I would be able to superimpose the two graphs; but I am not that jpeg savvy and the vertical scales are not identical. 

 

However, it doesn't take long to see that in 1995 wood pigeons were found in a maximum of 60% of participating gardens during the summer, but falling to around 30% in November. 

 

Whereas in 2020 they are seen in 90% of gardens, and hardly drop below 80% all year round. 

 

In other words, they are almost everywhere especially in suburban gardens; where they have moved in wholesale due to the cheap wheat added to 'wild bird mix' in order to bulk it out for garden centres, supermarkets, and the like. 

 

Now you may think that they are no danger to smaller birds, and they all live happily together - which is what I thought until I began to monitor their behaviour much more closely. 

 

It is true that most birds do not see wood pigeons as a threat, like they do for (say) magpies, but their sheer bulk seems to be off putting, and the fact they stick around for hours at a time. I have a table feeder setup with a cage over it, ostensibly to keep out squirrels. The food inside the cage is a mixture of raisins, dried mealworms, crushed weetabix, and various varieties of suet pellets. I buy them all separately and mix them in a large plastic toy storage box. 

 

When left to their own devices, starlings, house sparrows, robins, blackbirds will all venture inside the cage and eat what they fancy. I have even seen a great tit in there, even though there are plenty of fatballs and seeds in the hanging feeders. However, when one or two wood pigeons arrive they just walk around the cage for hours - even though there is no chance of them getting inside. It is almost as if they believe that staying there until infinity will suddenly release all the food for them.

 

This behaviour puts off the smaller birds which go elsewhere. 

 

I used to have berries on my holly well into January, and blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares would consume them all in the weeks after Christmas. Now, the wood pigeons spend day after day there early in November ands scoff the lot, except for ones on branches they can't reach. 

 

No berries, no redwings etc. 

 

I am at a loss over what to do, apart from buy a .22 air gun - but SWMBO would not allow that. I have sent for some plastic spikes on a 2 metre roll to superglue around the cage - thus preventing wood pigeons from standing there - but I am in danger of preventing small birds from landing as well; and anyway the woodies would probably just sit on top of the cage for hours, adding their compost as an accelerator to the decomposing bird food. 

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Pigeon pie anyone? 

[Hroth]

Some sort of Nerf gun might do the trick.  I tried one on the squirrels and even if you miss they go running and keep away for a while.  I've caught a couple on the head, a smart rap with a hollow "thock" to it.  Its not harmed them, they just sit on the wall several yards away and look wistfully at the feeder.

 

The pigeons are a trial and a pest.  Most of the dispensers are hanging feeders and cages. I've one wire tray thing for the ones who don't like using the hanging feeders, but the fat sods descend on that when its provisioned, and sit on it "waiting" when its empty.  They're so brazen that they'll sit there when I open the door and rarely flinch if I miss.  A hit drives them off for 15 minutes or so, then they're back with that gormless expression, waiting to be fed...

 

Anyhow, I expect that shooting even wood pigeons with an air rifle in a domestic environment is illegal.

 

[hmrspaul]

2 hours ago, jonny777 said:

I have a theory, and it can be summed up in two words... 

 

Wood pigeons. 

 

 

I agree that the BTO and RSPB have been slow to see the effect of urbanisation of Wood Pigeons. At least 15 years ago I used to argue this with colleagues whom were much more involved with the local RSPB and birders. It has taken ages for the BTO and RSPB reports to start considering biomass - they are big birds and must replace a lot of smaller birds. The State of the UK's Birds 2020 | BTO - British Trust for Ornithology 

 

The BTO page on Wood Pigeons still seems to be at a loss to understand them. Two years ago they appeared in numbers in the Museum Gardens in central York. I suspect the main casualties will be the feral pigeons! Now I've never seen them on our feeders etc and I deliberately put out the spent parrot food and more food for them on the floor. I like them.  

 

Oh to have wild ringnecks in the garden. I live in hope! We spend a considerable amount going to Central and South American wilderness to see wild parrots every year and we are missing them desperately. I expect the neighbours would hate us even more if we tempted Ringnecks in.... Our feeding the squirrels doesn't go down well!

 

Paul 

Edited February 1, 2021 by hmrspaul

[The Lurker]

I notice that the parakeets particularly liked our ornamental cherry just as it was blossoming. They'll miss it this year as it was dying so we had it taken out!

 

Over this lockdown i have noticed them mobbing a bird of prey (possibly a buzzard) and then the next day one was escorting what was probably a heron as it flew over, zigging and zagging and seemingly driving it in a particular direction. Last year I heard a racket as a number flew at low level through the garden hotly pursued by what I think was a peregrine (they nest on one of the tall buildings down by the station). They passed back seconds later, pretty much like a dogfight! But I didn't see any denouement so I still don't know what happened.

[geoffers]

Very disappointing hour in the garden yesterday. The usual tits nowhere to be seen, apart from those watching, even though they were about on Saturday, So one each of blue tit, robin, starling, dunnock, wood pigeon, blackbird. That's all folks! this year is far worse than last year when I even saw a blackcap which hung for a month, but even last year was down on the year before. Norfolk County Council and Broadland Council has allowed a developer to build a lot of new houses 200 to 500 yards away so there has been a lot of disruption and the hedgerow corridor has been compromised. Will be even worse next year as the first tranche of building ceases and the second begins. No finches appear in the garden nowadays nor thrushes apart from blackbirds. The neighbour also put some rat poison down which I fear has done in some of the ground feeders. Bit distressing all in all.

[hmrspaul]

4 hours ago, The Lurker said:

I notice that the parakeets particularly liked our ornamental cherry just as it was blossoming. They'll miss it this year as it was dying so we had it taken out!

 

Over this lockdown i have noticed them mobbing a bird of prey (possibly a buzzard) and then the next day one was escorting what was probably a heron as it flew over, zigging and zagging and seemingly driving it in a particular direction. Last year I heard a racket as a number flew at low level through the garden hotly pursued by what I think was a peregrine (they nest on one of the tall buildings down by the station). They passed back seconds later, pretty much like a dogfight! But I didn't see any denouement so I still don't know what happened.

There are reports that the main predation of the London population of Ringnecks is by Peregrines - which are increasing in population everywhere. Those on the Minster here in York, whom have their own Twitter site, have to subsist on pigeons - despite the Woodies we do have a large population of Feral pigeons. 

 

Paul

[Flying Pig]

Our local starling roost has become very large in the last couple of weeks.  Here it is the other day (I am attempting a count from this photo - the bulge on the left of the formation is about 2000 birds):

 

 

Over the last few days, the roost has begun to attract a peregrine.  On Wednesday, the peregrine came fast and low from behind me, skimming the roost trees and scattering the starling flock before chasing them away to the other end of town, from whence they straggled back a few minutes later.  You can just see it as a blob in the middle of this hasty photo:

 

 

Tonight, the chase was right over my head but very brief before the peregrine departed at speed, which suggests it got its dinner.  Autofocus was not playing tonight (the perils of not having a proper camera) but I managed this shot which at least shows the characteristic anchor shape and the thoroughly spooked starlings.

 

 

 

[Flying Pig]

(Duplicate content deleted)

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Flying Pig
Duplicate post

[NIK]

On 01/02/2021 at 11:35, jonny777 said:

I have a theory, and it can be summed up in two words... 

 

Wood pigeons. 

 

However, my full theory tends to be long - spoiler warning. 

 

I partake in the BTO garden birdwatch scheme. It is an all year round affair with weekly inputs - not just one weekend in January. I have been contributing records since it started in 1995. 

 

Here is a graph of the annual recorded level of wood pigeons in gardens of BTO contributors showing 1995 levels of wood pigeons (blue line). The grey line is the 1995-2020 average. 

 

 

 

Here is a similar graph showing the 2020 levels of wood pigeons as the blue line. 

 

 

 

In a perfect world, I would be able to superimpose the two graphs; but I am not that jpeg savvy and the vertical scales are not identical. 

 

However, it doesn't take long to see that in 1995 wood pigeons were found in a maximum of 60% of participating gardens during the summer, but falling to around 30% in November. 

 

Whereas in 2020 they are seen in 90% of gardens, and hardly drop below 80% all year round. 

 

In other words, they are almost everywhere especially in suburban gardens; where they have moved in wholesale due to the cheap wheat added to 'wild bird mix' in order to bulk it out for garden centres, supermarkets, and the like. 

 

Now you may think that they are no danger to smaller birds, and they all live happily together - which is what I thought until I began to monitor their behaviour much more closely. 

 

It is true that most birds do not see wood pigeons as a threat, like they do for (say) magpies, but their sheer bulk seems to be off putting, and the fact they stick around for hours at a time. I have a table feeder setup with a cage over it, ostensibly to keep out squirrels. The food inside the cage is a mixture of raisins, dried mealworms, crushed weetabix, and various varieties of suet pellets. I buy them all separately and mix them in a large plastic toy storage box. 

 

When left to their own devices, starlings, house sparrows, robins, blackbirds will all venture inside the cage and eat what they fancy. I have even seen a great tit in there, even though there are plenty of fatballs and seeds in the hanging feeders. However, when one or two wood pigeons arrive they just walk around the cage for hours - even though there is no chance of them getting inside. It is almost as if they believe that staying there until infinity will suddenly release all the food for them.

 

This behaviour puts off the smaller birds which go elsewhere. 

 

I used to have berries on my holly well into January, and blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares would consume them all in the weeks after Christmas. Now, the wood pigeons spend day after day there early in November ands scoff the lot, except for ones on branches they can't reach. 

 

No berries, no redwings etc. 

 

I am at a loss over what to do, apart from buy a .22 air gun - but SWMBO would not allow that. I have sent for some plastic spikes on a 2 metre roll to superglue around the cage - thus preventing wood pigeons from standing there - but I am in danger of preventing small birds from landing as well; and anyway the woodies would probably just sit on top of the cage for hours, adding their compost as an accelerator to the decomposing bird food. 

 

 

 

 

Hi,

 

Fit the floor of the table with vertical upside down U shapes in wire spaced less than a pigeons width apart that the smaller birds can hop between but the bend of the U is too small for a pigeon to grip on to?.

 

Not a metal spike otherwise you could end up with a kebabed sparrow hawk.

 

My next door neighbour fitted plastic spikes to the top of her fence but the pigeons still walk along it.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick

[jbqfc]

this morning i have been watching the sparrows trying to dust bath on our frozen veg plot quit funny at times watching them slide around 

 

John 

[J. S. Bach]

Last Sunday morning on my way out of my roost, I startled a cardinal and a blue jay; the first two that I have seen this year. Last year at this same point it time, I recall many cardinals; I hope that they come back again.

[J. S. Bach]

7 hours ago, NIK said:

Hi, ...snip... My next door neighbor fitted plastic spikes to the top of her fence but the pigeons still walk along it.

Regards

Nick

I recall years ago many buildings in Baltimore, MD put barbed, electrified wires on all of the normal pigeon roosting places; the result? The pigeons now roosted on the wires! Note that the splatters were larger; they has further to fall before they hit their target.

Edited February 12, 2021 by J. S. Bach

[88D]

A neighbour spotted a black redstart in their garden (Upper Calderdale, Yorkshire). I have never seen one before, so I’m wondering how many of you have. It seems they are more southerly if spotted.

[Phil Bullock]

Male black cap had taken up residence In our garden and chases away all comers up to and including blackbirds..... feisty little beggar!

[jamie92208]

Good morning from The Charente.   I haven't posted here for a while but have had two sightings recently that I thought might interest you.   We have had the usual garden birds of sparrows, various Tits and Robins around all winter.   Starlings are also seen and the Buzzards and Harriers seem to be doing well on the roads out of the village. The buzzards roost on the telephone poles.

Over the past two weeks, this gentleman has been wandering round our garden and the neighbouring truffle orchard (Not ours). He seems to like walking around

Also yesterday a neighbour rang us to tell us that the Cranes were coming, not construction machinery, but what I think are Common Cranes, migrating from their winter feeding grounds in Spain/Portugal to Scandinavia for the summer.   Apparently well over 100,000 of them do this and you can hear the flocks coming from some distance due to the honking. They seem to circle over our village and then head north quite fast.  Here's a close up from the first flock.

Then a few minutes later another flock came over 

The locals say that their passing marks the end of winter.   We've seen them in 2019 and this year going north but don't see them going south.  However we do get storks some years that roost overnight on the grain silo and any electricity poles they can find, in September.

 

Jamie

 

[PhilJ W]

I've spent quite a bit of time recently watching the sparrows making their nests in the shrubbery next door to my house. They found a piece of old carpet that they are tearing to shreds for nesting material.