Kitchen Garden Forum

Husband is a crazy bird lover and the upper storey of our house now has no more room for bird boxes. To date, we have:
4 sparrow terraces (each has 3 sparrow homes) - all highly populated.
4 starling boxes - 3 regularly used, one seems undesirable to all comers.
4 swift boxes - 1 currently populated by starlings. Attracting swifts in to nest is the holy grail for hubby.

The sparrow boxes are immediately outside our bedroom window. I mean absolutely right next to them. Right on the level with the top opening window of the bay. Sunrise is currently at 5.10am. Sparrows have a morning chirp session when they first get up. I leave the rest to your imagination on that.

Hubby also spends a fortune on bird food; I think he feels that they are kindred spirits because they eat so much. His latest bird treat is peanut butter with mealworms in it that gets hung from a feeder and they clean out a jar of it in under a week, mostly starlings. With the bird equivalent of choclate flavoured crack cocaine on offer, they don't bother the plants much.

Heaven help me if he succeeds with the swifts!

I also spend rather a lot on bird food over the year but it is worth it for the pleasure of watching all the different kinds of birds. I get my seed etc from an agricultural supplier so it's much more economical than buying from pet shops or the RSPB. I have a visiting gang of sparrows that do raids on my garden from their home under the gutter of a house across the road and this year we've had a starling family for the first time in ages. They do make a racket. I wouldn't want them near my bedroom. Has your husband thought that their boisterous behaviour might put the swifts off nestin there. It would be lovely if they did.

I do like all your bird stories and you have my sympathies, if appropriate!
After yesterday's messy episode in the house, we have decided to ignore the requests for food by the blackbirds. But I feel so guilty doing so because at the moment the ground is bone dry and where are those poor bird parents going to find any worms to feed their youngsters? (It must be the mother/grandmother/greatgrandmother in me!) Tonight I am going to leave the sprinkler on a large part of the garden so they can have a good dig for food!

I don't mind the blackbirds and their young, we also have goldfinch, robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits and a rather large number of bully boy starlings who have nested in the neighbours soffits. They and their offspring (about 40 last count) are taking up the birdbath practically all day (emptying it several times, they are so messy) pooing all over everything (my poor fatsia!). They are scaring off the smaller birds, the goldfinch wait paitently for the birdbath, but get fed up with the splashing and squawking and give up and go away. The noise is deafening, we can't hear the more beautiful birdsong at all. Hopefully they may go elsewhere next year, as the neighbour has finally noticed the nest and blocked the entrance (they have all fledged). They hoover up all the mealworms, leaving none for Bob the robin and Brian the blackbird.

Every time this thread is updated I think of politicians, can't imagine why.

peter wrote:Every time this thread is updated I think of politicians, can't imagine why.

peter wrote:Every time this thread is updated I think of politicians, can't imagine why.

Because many are annoying *__* maybe

When this first came to my attention the news was on and Nicola Sturgeon came on, I had to do a double take for a minute there.

The swifts are coming heart-stoppingly close to the new nest boxes today! A pair has done a really thorough reccy, including checking the flight approach path into them, so we're hoping that we will be successful shortly. I bet the neighbours hope so, too, as we're playing swift calls into the garden to attract them! Consider it payback for barbeque smells and screaming children. Tee hee!

We have a continuous lively debate in our house about the feeding or birds versus the growing of seedlings and vegetable and I have to say we haven't ywt reached a totally satisfactory so,union because every year I end up in spring having a proportion of my seedlings estenby birds and in winter, my green are attached by wood pigeons.

Mu hisbands spends fortune on bird food. It has come to the point where I,m really fed up and disillusioned by having my seedlings eaten and have suggested that all the. Ire feeders are moved into the front garden away from my crops. However this has raised two objections
A). My husband would be going out in his pyjamas every morning in sight of the neighbours although not many of them are up at the Ungodly hour he often rises,

B). We would probably end up with bird poo all over the car parked in the driveway!

The debate will no doubt continue!

I only feed the birds during the winter, you shouldn't really be feeding now, some foods can choke baby birds and kill them, so a compromise would be to stop feeding when your seedlings are out and most of the birds will disperse, also get him to buy you some netting to protect your crops, works for me.

I feed the birds all year round and make sure that the peanuts are chopped into smaller pieces so they won't choke little birds. Birds eat a lot less in summer anyway and it's usually the adults having a snack in between looking for worms and insects for their young.

All my feeders are at the back of the house and the main veg area is at the front but I don't know if that makes any difference. This year I've put large bright coloured windmills round the bed with peas in. So far the sparrows haven't touched them, but this might just be luck that they've not seen them.

I always net the brassicas and soft fruit anyway. The wood pigeons have got a new game this year - jumping about in the cherry trees and picking off the green fruit and throwing it on the floor. B*****ds.

Primrose - I park my car almost directly under where many of the bird boxes are that hubby put up several years ago. I make him clean my car.