[Closed] Drunk sparrows?

Another unnsuccessful boozy cake thrown to the birds?

Just checking it all out, once they're happy it's not a trap they'll be in it provided you fill it with proper bird food.

Mine have been visiting all winter since adorning my garden with feeders and tables and water, took them about a week or so to become comfortable to edge thier way in,mthen it's been a delight to watch them and Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Cold Tits and two lovely looking birds I couldn't name.. Oh, and a family of fat pigeons too.. And Starlings.

Our lot all seem to be in nesting mode, certainly gathering fine twigs and such..

😀

😀 @ Josh

That's good to hear BB. After aborting the idea of a whole row of hedging, planning on just a few individual berry/protection-giving hedges, with an assortment of water sources & feeders like you say.

Any hedging will be appreciated by the birds. My feeders are actually hung inside a fairly large Acer Palmatum, which is very open now it's got older and branches have died off. Once the leaves come out the birds love it, because they're hidden from view, but you can hear the sparrows arguing the toss inside, and there are all these little brown blurs as they rocket in and out through small gaps in the leaves, accompanied by much shaking of branches. The goldfinches, chaffinches, blue, coal and great tit's all love the feeders being inside the tree, because there's loads of places for them to perch, and I get two or three wood pigeons scrambling around on the branches after the feeders, too, greedy buggers!
The blackbirds go after the bits the other birds drop all over the patio, and there's a little dunnock that hops around after the bits as well.
Had a gold crest once, but not seen it since, sadly.

Just before Xmas my neighbours pulled down their fence, which was actually held up by Ivy :lol:, they also pulled down a beautiful Bay Tree that the birds used to love.

I was gutted.

However a new fence has allowed my to fit 5 seed feeders to the posts and I've been filling them up twice a week since. It's like they're last buggers, just coming into my garden to feed :lol:.. Anyhoos' I've also got this mad Tree in my garden, no idea what on earth it is either but it offers some great cover for birds, so they stop off in it, swoop down onto the feeders, chomp, swoop back up into the tree ad nausximum 😆
To counter my next door neighbours butchering techniques I've planted 4 fruit trees too, I'm watching them bud out now as spring moves on, hoping by the end of summer that they've properly bedded and offer some more rest bite for wandering birds.

I am blessed with Titchfield Haven close by and the Hamble mud flats so we have all sorts of birds coming and going, it's really quite beautiful.

😀

Hedging is coming along nicely, but I'd love to get some feeders going.

Is five feeders the magic number in terms of supporting the most species most effectively?

Any advice on which feeders to go for gratefully received!

Nah, I chose 5 because I have 7 posts and chose to fit them in the middle 😀

As for feeders, I went to the bird sanctuary in Titchfield and asked them, they recommended B&Q simple wire wrap with a lid on for the hanging feeders, a shallow roofed table feeder (so the crows/pigeons/magpies can't get under it to steel the seeds and a water table of 1/2mtr in diameter and no deeper than 20mm deep so the smaller birds can paddle without drowning :lol:, all available from B&Q and cost no more than £70 for the lot.
Feed, well I'm using seeds and fat balls (though now it's spring the fat balls aren't being eaten so I'll replace that with another seed feeder) and again I bought that from B&Q, 5kg for £7 and I've gone through 2 bags since late Nov.

All this info came from the bird sanctuary and it's what they recommend. I googled loads on the RSPB and they offered the same advice, only differing on feed types depending on what birds are in your area. Maybe worth a quick search on there by location before buying feed.

One thing, Dawn Chorus. It's both beautiful and slightly annoying 😆

Can you raise the bird table so it's just above the fence? It might help attract some more activity, it did for my garden.

Just had my first Sparowhawk visit this week too 🙂

A word of warning about feeding garden birds:
It gets expensive!
We have a smallish tube-type bird feeder that probBly holds around a pint by volume of seed. The greedy little feathered fekkers can now empty it in a little over a day at times, and rarely more than 4 days! We buy seed by the 25kg sack and fat balls in boxes of 200.
I love them though. Sparrows, tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and the odd finch.... We get them all and they all have their character and it's fun to watch the sparrows especially line up on the fence to take their turn or try to hover when there's no space at the feeder.
They're not big and important birds, just little animals trying to make their way in the world and I get a lot of enjoyment from seeing them in the garden. 🙂

We live in the sticks but don't actually have a garden (we're effectively gnomes in someone else's enormous garden) So the only place we can secure bird feeders where we'd see them is from the top sash of our windows.

We get lots of lovely birds right up at our window as a result including Nuthatches which aren't even supposed to be in Scotland - the little colony around our house is thought to be the only one.

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The up and down side is we also get Pied Woodpeckers at the window. The downside being they hit the feeder at such speed they swing the whole thing into the glass with a whack, then a series of staccato whacks as they eat then a massive wham as they launch again. As the mornings get lighter we start getting all that clattering around 4am.

A word of warning about feeding garden birds:
It gets expensive!

aye! we have three of these

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1 mixed (no wheat), 1 sunflower, 1 peanuts. A smaller container with Niger seeds for the goldfinches. 2 boxes of live meal worms a month for the robins/blackbirds/tits, lots of sultanas blackbirds and starlings love them.

another problem with attracting birds to your garden is these
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also sparrows can be crafty little buggers, when theres too many for the feeders the ones on the feeders will empty the seed out onto the ground for the rest of the gang!

Thanks all, bird feeder is now third project in the queue!