Feeding the birds is not without its problems, and here at Saltholme we are very much aware that bird food attracts other life apart from song birds. Rats like bird food, and Sparrowhawks like birds.
When I started here 3 years ago, I erected a screen at the Wildlife Watchpoint Hide so that I could go out to the feeding station in the morning and feed the birds without scaring wildfowl in front of the hide. Almost immediately, the birds stopped coming to the feeders. It took me a while to work out what was wrong, but after a few days of patiently studying bird behaviour I eventually saw a Sparrowhawk fly in from along the bund using my screen as a ................... screen.
I had inadvertently created the perfect approach for a predator which flies along features such as hedgerows and grabs any birds that are scared into flight.
Sparrowhawk with an eye on bird feeders, by Mark Stokeld.
I remedied this situation by planting lots of willow cuttings around the periphery of the feeding station, so that the Sparrowhawk would have to wiggle it’s way in and be slowed down to the point that hopefully, it would no longer bother. And it worked. Until now.
Our other resident bird food consumers, Brown Rats, have increased alarmingly this year, and as any pest control expert will tell you, the best way to deal with Rats is to remove what they call harbourage. This means removing the things that Rats like to feed on and hide in. As the bund along from the Watchpoint Hide had become rather overgrown, we cut and strimmed it to make it less Rat friendly. And that worked. Sort of.
As now we have a juvenile Sparrowhawk which has decided to make this new habitat one of his favourite haunts. The willows appear to have only worked in conjunction with the trees along the bund and now that the leaves have fallen, he has no problem flying in and out. There has been little song bird activity at the feeding station for a week now, not good for visiting families, but the photographers are enjoying getting some good Sparrowhawk shots. There have been a few mornings when I’ve opened the hide to find this little terror sitting on the feeders staring back it me with his beady little yellow eyes. There aren’t any signs of dead birds around though, which suggests his tactics have so far failed.
I really shouldn’t have written that.
And time for plan D.