Wildlife & Gardens

Uplifting.
It has made me feel slightly more positive,that and hearing Mozert's Clarinet Concerto in A Major.

 

Bought 24 apples from Tesco this morning. Put 6 out with small bite holes so they can access the soft fruit inside. Within 5 mins 6 blackbirds/fieldfares eating the 6 apples. Pretty much nothing left now. All other food sources for those species out of reach at the moment with the snow and frozen ground.

 

I'm still feeding the foxes with cat food every night. The wildlife camera I have shows they come for the food 2-5 mins after I've left the scene. Feed them down at the end of the garden as don't want tame houses up near the house getting shirty with Phoebe our cat if she goes close to the feeding spot ! Tried to upload a video but file size is too large. What happens to these foxes that you "adopt" ? Are they released or stay in a "foxes home" ?

 

Foxes you adopt tend to stick around and post stuff like @Filbert

 

That's a great idea. I'll be trying that too.

 

Four and twenty plus blackbirds? Are you planning some sort of pie? Mmm. Pie.

 

Yes my apples are going like crazy too,they all love them!
I bought three more feeders today as Lidl's have a batch of them in,including a window feeder that has bemused Ford and Arthur!

Our foxes wait for me to put out the first sitting/cover. I can sense Pretty Fox in the hedges.
My neighbour puts out the second sitting a bit later,around midnight and it all goes although YTS Ford is hanging around but Ford usually sees him off.
Fancy Filbert is a rescue from a fur farm and these foxes cannot be liberated. See the videos Smudger has posted on the YouTube thread for Finnegan Fox and friends at SaveAFox. Dixie actually sits on Mikayla's head whilst she's out with them!

 

Our male muntjac seems to be having a bit of a hormone rush. Been charging around the garden like it's on speed and spent a good 5 minutes attacking a fishing net at the end of the garden, tossing it up in the air with its' antlers. On a less charming note, it's developed a liking to crocus flowers so has just strimmed the flowers off every single crocus in the lawn. I may have to find a way of keeping the deer out or abandon the far end of the garden !

 

One unfortunately died in our garden after getting tangled in my sons goal net. We keep it to one side now to avoid the same happening again.

Placed some apples in the apple tree today. I think it's really confused the cr*p out of the neighbours.

 

I keep having to top up the bird bath as the starlings dive in ten at a time and splash it all over as Henry would have said.
Brave souls as the water is very cold.
Birds are really getting through the apples,both on the ground and the halves I spike on tree branches.
They all eat heartily,big and small.

 

Better for the birds if you put them on the lawn actually. They expect to find windfall apples under trees and by this time of year they're normally nice and soft after lots of frosts so easier to eat (thats why i bite some of the skin off so they can get at the flesh. Robins, t1ts and blackcaps will peck at them in the trees (I hang one with a perch twig pushed through it) but blackbirds/fieldfares/redwings/thrushes will be looking on the ground primarily....

 

They have a reputation because by our standards, their behaviour is deplorable. I realise it's nature, but nature has good guys and bad guys and crows know they are the baddies.

 

You should probably throw it away. It will start to stink soon.

 

Yes but great bait for the red kites and wolves.

 

I blame Apollo.
Βαλλ'εις κόρακας!

 

That would be a great over the fence conversation in the style of One foot in the Grave.

Neighbour: Morning! (Wryly) Restocking the tree I see.
Diamond: Yes, it’s run out.

Later.

Neighbour (to wife): He’s quite barmy you know. Today he was actually putting apples in the tree. God knows where he thinks they come from.
Wife: It’s Mrs Diamond I feel sorry for.

 

" I don't believe it!"

 

It did present a problem. They're bigger and heavier than you might think. Wasn't sure the bin men would be too happy to see it stuffed in the recycling bin and I couldn't be bothered to dig a deep hole.
In the end I left it at the bottom corner of the garden and "something" had it away.

 

Coyotes.

On our walks we have seen a few dead beasts. Fox, badger a couple of deer etc. And they just decay and get scavenged until just fur and bare skeleton. The red kites and crows have their work cut out.

 

The blue Wilf Zahas seem as keen on the apples as the blackbirds and redwings.
One was feasting for about three minutes.
Long tailed Wilf Zahas back to day too.
Zaha frenzy!

 

A red kite took out a pigeon this morning. Quite a spectacle although unpleasant viewing.
However it should make a substantial meal and hopefully with keep the kits away from the smaller birds.
Sorry Wilbur!

 

The red kite killed a pigeon ? Very rare they ever kill prey unlike buzzards. They usually just eat carrion. Sure it wasn’t a sparrowhawk? They love pigeons.

 

Well,given my eyesight it probably was a sparrow hawk.
I only saw it happen from my kitchen window so I'm happy to be corrected.

 

Flibert
Fancy Fox is now officially Fancy Filbert Fox!

 

I got so fed up with seeing them take birds that had been lured to their deaths by my feeders that I have all feeders behind chicken wire now which takes away their element of surprise. Still take the odd bird but before that they were just picking goldfinches off the Niger seed feeders at will. The females are larger of course and quickly take any collared doves that take up residence. They are just to slow and cumbersome to get away. Remember the screams of a starling being plucked alive in neighbours garden, nothing I could do as the hawk just looked at me as I tried to scare it off, as it carried on eating.

 

Agreed. It’s interesting, though, to consider your personal starting point which of course is your ‘norm’. Collard doves were very rare in the 60s/70s when they had recently arrived in the UK. Birdwatchers were very excited by them then. Similarly I can remember as a boy that magpies were much rarer than they are now. We would always point them out when we saw them because it was a bit of an event to do so. Modern youngsters probably never give them a second glance although they are beautiful birds.

 

Yes I saw one take a starling last summer.
There was nothing I could do,very brutal.
Good work with the chicken wire,I love goldfinches, beautiful little birds.

 

Yes, there were so many more insects around when I was young.

 

Teapot,another Wilf and swift box all up now.
Plenty of nesting options for discerning birds now!

 

Tried something new, put apples into the fat ball feeder, cut a few holes in the apples. I'll update if it works or not.

 

I did that the other day after the quarter I left on the bird table was nicked by the squirrel who has finally managed to circumvent every protection measure I've tried.
The birds haven't gone for the apple yet, but it might be a bit too early.