Although I have taken the hard decision to withdraw all feeders/food from the garden except for floating duck food on the pond due to the sick Bullfinch and the Greenfinch last week, I thought I would try doing something a little different today by monitoring carefully a limited amount of pastry, suet pellets and live mealworms under a very watchful eye using a small area where I was sitting. There were no finches around, just Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Great Tits, G.S.Woodpecker, Jay, Jackdaw and Robin who seemed to relish the food I put out. I did not put seed out at all so as not to attract the finches and it seemed to work very well for the couple of hours I was sitting by the area. No feeders will be hung out properly until the beginning of June so as to give time for this sickness in the Bullfinch to hopefully be over although I have not seen her since the day I saw she was sick.
Once I came back inside the house the food was taken away as I couldn't monitor the birds using the pastry feeder or suet/mealworm holder. As always, I had my camera at my side and just as well in the circumstances as I caught the Blue Tits courtship feeding with pastry and the Great Spotted Woodpecker came to the pastry feeder too so the first time I was able to get photos of G.S.Woody in the open and not from behind a window pane. I think all the birds visiting today were taking food away with them, hopefully to either feed the female or to feed nestlings so it was worth the effort to sit and monitor and make some foods available to them.
Here are the photos today ...........
The Blue Tits courtship feeding session (female on the right)
male - Great Spotted Woodpecker
A Jackdaw who was watching from the tree above with open beak !
A Jay but not Jake by the looks of it
The Mallards were resting by the Aubretia on the Rockery area
a female Pheasant who wondered where the usual supply of food had gone and grabbed a live mealworm which had fallen from the dish !
The Robin of which we seem to have many !
and looking at the empty feeder hooks lol
he couldn't believe there were no feeders, just kept looking at me until I pointed out the live mealworms and suet pellets !!
and last but not least the beautiful Blackbirds who were taking live mealworms faster than MC's spadgers lol
all the debris on the ground is from the beech and oak trees
and that's all folks until I can get the feeders back up and running !
_____________________________________
Regards, Hazel
Great photos Hazy & glad you're managing to keep feeding the other birds. I've resolved to do no more feeding until the winter, but there is a lot of natural food around so hopefully they'll all manage. I miss the birds though.
Best wishes
Hazel in Southwest France
Thanks Hazel, I won't really be feeding the birds properly for 3 weeks or so and can't really continue what I did today too often as it requires sitting out and watching all the time to make sure no sick looking bird appears. It was good to give the breeding Robins and Blackbirds a bit of suet, pastry and mealworms and they seemed to relish it. I just can't take the chance of putting feeders up yet and think it is worth waiting, as you say, there is plenty of natural food around at this time of year which is a real bonus. Lets hope we've seen the last of the sick birds.
By the way, I had an email from one of the Vets from the London Zoological Society with some helpful fact sheets so I will try put them up on another thread as they are very informative about the illness/diseases that affect in particular the finches. I received the email due to the fact I reported both the Greenfinch and the Bullfinch to the BTO. Had I of still had the remains of the Greenfinch they wanted to carry out a post mortem on the bird to properly ascertain which illness it died from.
Lovely photos. I'd back my Starlings against any bird when it comes to grabbing mealies!
Unicum arbustum haud alit duos erithacos
(One bush does not shelter two Robins)
Zenodotus (3rd Century B.C.)
lol, thanks MC and Alan, I must say it was good, however limited, to give the birds a few titbits, they just couldn't get enough and kept coming back, especially the female blackbird and the robins. The weather was better than forecast so a bonus all round !
Nice to see the birds having a good feed Hazy, they love the pastry and pellets don't they. I took a similar snap of the female blackbird with her beak full of mealies, albeit soaked ones, they are funny stuffing their mouths so full and dropping bits only to try to put more in again. Well done for keeping it going after the tragedy of the bullfinches, that little robin is almost talking to you.
Lot to learn
Lovely set of photos Hazy- I've been lucky and not had to stop feeding,but you're doing the right thing.I feel sorry for the Blackbirds in my garden as they seem to miss out because of the bigger birds-I bought a guardian ground feeder like yours,but they won't use it.I have now resorted to staying in the garden for them to have 1st pickings,the lengths we go to!!
Jayne
See my Flickr photos here.
Thanks Gaynor and Jayne, the female blackbird must have been back well over half a dozen times carrying around 8 to 10 mealworms off each time so hoping she has young to feed :) can't wait to see more baby birds in the garden.
Such a shame about the sick birds but as you say, there is plenty of natural food around at the moment. The blackbirds and starlings seem to be getting an awful lot of worms out of the lawn at the moment.
Your photos are lovely - hard to pick a favourite - I really like the mallard with the aubretia, and I do like a GSW!
I'm sure it won't be long before we're seeing all the chicks appear in the garden and by that time you'll probably be able to start feeding again.
See my Flickr photos here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/115745582@N04/
Thanks Christine, despite there being no food outside (apart from natural) this morning I have already seen 3 Robins, 2 Red Legged Partridges, 10 Jackdaws, 4 Magpies, 3 Blackbirds, 2 Blue Tits and 2 Great Tits plus one male Mallard who will no doubt be back and bring Mrs with him later on. Oh and did I mention Cyrils ? lol not as many as usual, just 3 have shown their furry faces so far - they are going around every nook and cranny with their noses to the ground in case they missed any food from last week ! As the weather is supposed to turn showery/windy/overcast for the foreseeable future I am not sure I will be able to monitor any mealworms/pastry/suet so they may have to fend for themselves again. In a way its good for the garden as I can see the Jackdaws in particular aerating the lawn for us - just wish the Red Legs wouldn't keep bashing my miniature flowering Cherry shrub lol