Where are all the birds?

[nmayhew]

Seven million pet cats in Britain now I believe.

One cat kills one bird per week. 354 million birds lost per year 'potentially'.

plus the small mammals, toads and frogs.

Then there's habitat loss, shooting and trapping at migration hotspots overseas - that's another story.

Keith

I actually quite like cats... but we don't have one.

Hello all,

Seabreeze - cats are NOT the reason our feathered friends' numbers are declining! (You can even ask the RSPB) I think you'll find farming and many (not all) of its modern methods are responsible - if you change a species' habitat and food chain, inevitably you change its population. Some birds' numbers have risen steeply in the past 20 years or so, but most have gone down. It has nothing to do with cats.

Anyway,since this seems to be a "show and tell" for birds, here is what we have now or have had this summer - all are pretty plentiful unless indicated:

blackbird
blue tit
great tit (nesting in stable wall)
starling (nesting in stable roof)
coal tit
rook
crow
magpie
jackdaw
sparrow
starling (insatiable appetite)
robin
thrush (rare)
lesser and greater spotted woodpecker (one lives in giant oak a few yards away)
green woodpecker
jay
wood pigeon
collared dove
swallow (at dusk they would fly right around me as if I wasn't there!)
chaffinch
green finch
heron
sparrow hawk (comes in across the fields at dusk - rare though)
brown owl - obviously never seen, only heard (thought we had lost them but still around - sounded so loud the other night I swear one of them was sitting on the edge of the bed!)
barn owl - actually saw it driving back from the pub at night - massive!
pheasant (3 or 4 are always plodding around the lawn - we have a large shoot just down the road)
nuthatch (very proud of IDing him through my bird book - the only bird we have that walks down trees head first!)

sure i missed one or 2 but that's it off the top of my head.

I should add that until I started putting out food, not much came into the garden. I guess if you're a bird, why go somewhere where there's nothing to eat? I am now getting through about 15-20 fat balls a week, plus untold feeders full of peanuts and seed!

I live in an old farmhouse in Kent with garden bordering fields and woodland - yes there is still some countryside left in the South East - so I guess if I don't see birds then we should REALLY start to worry!

Kind regards,

Nick

[Johnny Appleseed]

Seven million pet cats in Britain now I believe.

One cat kills one bird per week. 354 million birds lost per year 'potentially'.

plus the small mammals, toads and frogs.

Then there's habitat loss, shooting and trapping at migration hotspots overseas - that's another story.

Keith

I actually quite like cats... but we don't have one.

Totally agree seabreeze. My neighbours multiple cats decimate the birds nesting in my garden alone. It's very distressing to hear the birds calling out in anguish as their young are killed by marauding cats.

It's equally frustrating to find my neighbours cats torturing the young in the bushes or on the lawn.

I refuse to have a cat for that very reason.

And this is only one example of the highly efficient domestic cat killing machine in action.

[Two_Sheds]

I've come all the way to Singapore for my hols, expecting to find exotic parrots in the trees, peafowl etc .
Guess what there is?
.
.
.
pigeons. sparrows. starlings
!!

[Hazel at the Hill]

barn owl - actually saw it driving back from the pub at night - massive!

Cool! I wonder if it stood it's own round?

[rustylady]

Day off work, not feeling too good, but just been out in the garden and the starlings are back. My sparrows have gone a bit quiet, but we now have a resident magpie so maybe that's the cause. Blackbirds hatched two broods this year, but haven't seen them lately.

[nmayhew]

Cool! I wonder if it stood it's own round?

ha ha

it flew across the lane a few yarsd in front of us and was in the headlights for a second or two I guess, but pretty obvious what is was.

As to cats torturing, well yeah I know it looks grim (and is grim if you are on the wrong end of it!). I think "torture" is imparting them with human emotions - they play with a silver ball in much the same way. My own take is that they are "practicing", honing reflexes etc, but who knows?

My cats have taken a few birds, but I figure that I help more than I hinder with all the food I put out.

My cats and the pheasants seem to have a mutual respect: they just walk around each other a few feet apart, but if the pheasant breaks "the rules", then Spitfire or Hurricane give them a half-hearted chase just to re-assert who is boss!

Cats are also v useful if you grow veggies: there are loads of rabbits in the fields around my patch but not a single lettuce has been nibbled. May have something to do with the 15+ rabbits caught this summer (and that was just one cat!).

Kind regards,

Nick

[digthatchick]

What was a Barn Owl doing driving back from the pub? ..... sorry!

[Stacey Steve]

He'd been down there trying to get the autograph of the Famous Grouse

[nmayhew]

The owl was driving because I was over the limit

[nick the grief]

Seabreeze - cats are NOT the reason our feathered friends' numbers are declining! (You can even ask the RSPB) ....

They don't help though

I cleaned all the feeders out last week and filled them up and put them out, within 3 minutes I had Collared dove, 3 sorts of tits, starling, blackbird, thrush. dunnock, robin, goldfinch and a woodpigeon - they obviously remember me from last year

[Two_Sheds]

There are 6 blackbirds fighting over my back garden at the moment ... dad and all his babies. He keeps chasing them away, and they keep coming back, bless.

[rustylady]

The darlings (starlings) are back, and there's a very plump and healthy looking female blackbird tucking into the windfall apples.

[nelliegemini]

We moved the bird food metal 'tree' nearer the house this year, and I have seen just one great tit on it - we thought we may have moved it too close. This morning there was a young crow pootling about under it, then on it - picking up mealworms. It then came onto the patio (not a very big patio) and totally ignored me and OH standing about 6 feet away. He is either very brave or very stupid (or very young).

I've never seen one that close, so perhaps we haven't moved the feeders too near to the house, there are just no birds about yet. I have seen/heard a mixed throng of great tits and long tailed tits - seen them from the bedroom window and on the top of the trees and heard them everywhere. Perhaps they are just not hungry enough?

[nick the grief]

I cleaned all my feeders and filled them 3 weeks ago and it took them 3 minutes to remember they were there !!! I had Great Tits and Robin on the fat balls whilst I was still filling my big feeder up!!

Re-filled the big one yesterday ( It holds 6kg a time!) and the silver birch was alive with Long tail tits. So they are definitely starting to re-appear round here!

[di]

We had a bluetit & a robin at the lottie today~mental note to take fatballs up on next trip!Also saw a couple of greenfinches there the other day.