Blackbird’s – Quintessential garden bird or utter morons?

Didn’t know they migrated. I routinely get 4 or 5 in the garden when it’s cold and they’re after the feeder, but we have enough small patches of bushes and hedge that it supports a lot of small territories

The Lost Words is such a beautiful book,and those paintings of Jackie Morris are lovely.

Thanks to a couple of very close friends, who have been close friends with Jackie for years, I get all the books she’s worked on with Robert as presents, signed by both of them. They’ve also got originals of hers; she’s a superb artist.

As far as garden birds are concerned, I got very concerned and upset during the summer because virtually all the birds just vanished, except for the greedy pigeons, and I can get four of them at once. After a lot of experimenting I managed to arrange the bird feeders in my tree in such a way that the pigeons can’t empty them anymore. Makes me laugh watching them landing in my Acer, then shuffle along ever thinner branches, trying to reach any feeder with food in, stretching out and overbalancing repeatedly then giving up and pecking around on the patio after the scraps the others drop.

I was delighted when the starlings started to come back a couple of months ago, and now I’ve got twenty to thirty or so emptying the feeder full of mealworms, and the ones full of suet pellets. Sadly the sparrows have really diminished in numbers, there used to be a whole bunch of them, squabbling over the pellets, but it’s very quiet without them when the starlings aren’t kicking off. There’s a couple of crows around, and a pair of magpies keep coming around as well, which pleases me, they’re stunning birds. The goldfinches numbers have dropped off a lot as well, I used to get sometimes fifteen-twenty on my feeders with the sunflower hearts but now only about half a dozen or so.

There’s a regular pair of blackbirds come into the garden, they bring their offspring in every year as well, and they get on quite happily with the other birds, even the starlings. But they get very pissy with the Scandinavian interlopers if we get a long cold period – I watched them get almost hysterical because of the fieldfares and redwings on my front hedge after the berries.

I’ve been getting a pair of blackcaps as well, male and female, and they were around last year as well, so they’re not migrant summer visitors, they’re here right through the winter, which is a lovely thing.

What else; a couple of blue tits, there’s been coal and marsh tits around, and a pied wagtail along with a grey wagtail on a regular basis, but neither at the same time, oddly. Oh, and a robin, who seems quite friendly, I was clearing a load of hedge clippings and it has hopping around in the hedge, and happily coming close to me, so I put a dish down with mixed bird food and mealworms, and it was perfectly okay near my feet picking away at it.
Got to say, it’s lovely having the birds back in the garden.

Birds in our garden provide a huge amount of pleasure. Each species is fighting for their territory and food. They shove and push each other off the feeders. But, the feistiest are usually the teeny birds, coal tits and siskins often hold their own against a bullfinch or greenfinch.

Blackbirds are lovely creatures and along with the robin can be found in most gardens.

Blackbirds are lovely creatures and along with the robin can be found in most gardens.

https://allpoetry.com/The-Wrong-House

Well,

I know nothing about birds, you’re speaking a foreign language. But on the back of this thread I’ve just nipped out at lunch and bought somewhat at random a fat block feeder and fat block with meal worms in, and a seed feeder and a bag of mixed seeds. They’re out in the back yard now.

Hopefully it’ll get some traction. Feed the birdies during a cold snap, plus it’s TV for the cats.