General Chat

I put food out for the birds daily....they reward my efforts by entertaining me with their antics. The seven blackbirds are great fun to watch! Their favourite seems to be the 'cakes' I make with seed, porridge oats, and dripping. Reg

Went in the garden earlier in my wellies to remove quite a good layer of snow from the bird table and their bath. Topped their seed up again and rinesd the bath out with a bucket of warm water then topped it up again for them to have a paddle and a drink of course!!! As well as the mixed seed they have fat balls and berry suet block and any of our leftovers, bread, crackers, biscuits, cake etc. Ever likely they keep coming back for more!!!!! My main worry is if we get bird flu really bad do we still feed the birds or not? Kath

I make sure our birds have enough - our main regulars at the mo are two pairs of blackbirds and a robin and some starlings and collared doves. I save the fat from sausages whatever I cook on tinfoil and soak it up with a slice of bread for them. Blackbirds love bananas and apples too so sometimes an extra soft one goes outside, plus outof date dried fruits, soaked first. We put up Fat balls and seeds/nuts in containers too. If you do start feeding the birds, try and get someone else to do it for you if you go away, as when they are used to coming and then turn up and there is nothing, they are wasting energy.

I have three bird houses, three fat balls and two lots of seeds in my garden and the birds do not take advantage of any of them !! I don't know whether this is a result of the decline in the general bird population, we certainly used to see a lot of birds in the garden. Then again, everyone round here puts out balls, seeds etc. for them so perhaps they are spoilt for choice !!!

Wendy, look at the thread Roxanne has on now...........Sob.......

Sandra im soft with all aimals,i opened the porch door the other day and found a live newt,,picked it up and put it in the flowerpot next to the door. the only thing im not soft with is SLUGS.horrible things keep crawling over the worktops at night ,if im up i pck them up with a tissue and throw them over the back field. i can just hear them as they sail into the wind ' oh not again ' too k me ages to get there lol wendy. ps anyone got a spare frog i can keep in the kitchen.

Thank you Roxanne!

Sandra, Thanks for posting this thread, its so very important to remember the birds when the weather is so bad,Good for you!! Roxanne x

*sighs.....all I seem to get are pigeons...there are two at the moment sitting on my wall and *rapping......lol

wendy, you are softer than I am.......... we buy these huge bags of bird food from the agricultural shops.........sacks of them..we used to have peacocks when we lived down south, and chickens and ducks..

i feed most of the year,even when theres plenty of natural stuff,they are thoroughly spoilt ,i have a container for the fat balls it holds about 5 and there are several types of bird hanging from it.its costing a fortune at the moment for seed and peanuts, i have about 10 containers round the garden,still i dont mind.they are worth it wendy

nasty those sparrow hawks I don't feed the birds if it is around.Haven't seen it for weeks....didn't know about soaking the bread........Also no whole peanuts, always use a feeder....

We love to see the birds in our garden. We have 5 hanging feeders with seed, peanuts and sunflowers seeds, plus the top of an old trestle sewing machine that acts as a bird table for scraps, apples that sort of thing. The garage roof gets all the old bread and more scraps. We even pour dregs of fat from cooking into a tub, adding crumbs of bread, cheese and anything else when clearing up after cooking - putting the whole thing out when it's full - very popular! lol We have been rewarded with the blue tits and long tailed tits bringing their family back this year to feed and the odd sparrow has now become quite a flock despite the magpies round here. Blackbirds, greenfinches, wagtails, robins all great fun to watch. We had one of our squirrels trying to work out how to get back up his tree from the garage roof with a whole slice of bread the other day. Hilarious. Definitely a bird service station here! Mags xx

Always feed the birds in our garden. Bird table full of crumbs,loads of hangers with seed,nuts,wildbird food. Have just been out to take ice of bird bath (again lol) and given them fresh water. Pat I would absolutely love to have a Robin taking food from my hand. My late Father had many different kinds of birds in his garden,especially Robin and Blue Tits. Jackie We were on holiday last year in Western Australia and it was magic having the Green Parrots (28s ? ) 'coming to breakfast' we had a lovely time. Did feed some cheeky Magpies at a golf course one day. Mau xx :o)

Steph, bread is Ok but as soon as the birds start nesting you should make sure the bread is soaked or it could choke the fledglings. The is something you can buy to put in bird water to stop it freezing. If the water is frozen don't try and melt it with hot water, it will freeze again quickly, use cold water to melt it (don't ask me why, not very good at science.) Actually our birds have all disappeared again, while we were away in Feb. We have several seed and fat feeders out and all we see are starlings and blackbirds. i guess the sparrow hawk has been menacing again. Ann Glos

Robins love grated cheese.........

I feed my birds every morning - they have half a packet of mixed fruit a day, plus fat balls and peanuts - they eat better than me :-) usually before I get to the back door they are already at the bird table :-) Steedie. Thats fine, although you may want to moisten it first as my birds are so picky they dont like dry bread :-) Karen

Well worth a thread---just been out down the river on my bike and fed the duck's and swan's with proper duck and swan ffod and bread---they were hungry too. We alway's feed the bird's in the garden too.

I love watching the birds in the morning - I feed the ones here on Alpen Musli - they love it. Anyone remember suet (the small peices of animal fat used in cooking) they also love that and its really good for them at this time of year - just make sure to mix it in with something else like nuts or bread (over weight birds cant fly!!!)

i always throw out bread that we dont need anymore, like if its been in the cupboard a few days...is it ok giving that to them?? xx