Reply With QuoteJust sat back at my desk in the home office and am looking out at a garden full of birds, Sparrows, Finches etc.
Could there be a new cat in the area?
We normally get Blue Tits, Great Tits and Coal Tits coming to our various feeders throughout the day, lots of them and practically all day long. Also a bevy of Long Tailed Tits on a less frequent but fairly regular basis. But suddenly there are none. For the last several days they appear to have completely vanished. Watching neighbours gardens they're not visiting there either - but then, only one of our immediate neighbours puts food out for them.
The resident Robin puts in a regular appearance, as does the resident Dunnock; and we still get lots of larger birds such as Wood Pigeon, Collard Doves, Blackbirds and Starlings coming to our bird table and ground feeding station, but the Tits of every variety seem to have deserted us. There's plenty of food choice for them, peanuts, mixed seeds, sunflower seeds and suet at various feeding stations in the garden - all nice and fresh.
Anyone else noticed a sudden and total lack of these birds in the garden?
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Just sat back at my desk in the home office and am looking out at a garden full of birds, Sparrows, Finches etc.
Could there be a new cat in the area?
Thanks for the thought. Neighbours have cats but they don't come into our garden very often. The feeders are all well off the ground and in such a way that cats couldn't get to them, so I don't think it's that. Also, if it were cats I'd guess they'd be going for the blackbirds, robin and dunnock as they prefer to feed at the ground level station.Originally Posted by thebuffoon
We are very close to woodland, but don't get finches very often though a pair of reed buntings are regular spring visitors.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
We have a lot of red kites around, considerably more than even five years ago. Perhaps a contribution?
"A man of little significance"
Or perhaps a local Sparrow hawk when one is around my area you don't see the small birds for dust.....
Unlikely to be down to Red Kites...they tend to eat carrion in the main. They do eat live prey but,according to the RSPB,it tends to be young gulls,crows,small rodents and (most commonly! earthworms. Small birds are apparently too difficult for them to catch.
i suspect a neighbour got a air rifle or something similar perhaps for christmas?
Covid killing them all off?
We do get the occasional Sparrow Hawk landing on our fence, but not seen it for a while. When it does put in an appearance it doesn't stay long, maybe 2 or 3 minutes at most. We see it more often in spring/summer though.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
I think our neighbours are mostly too old for an air rifle.
- - - Updated - - -
We are in a tier 3 area!
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
We saw a lot of small birds in the summer, but hardly any at the moment, even with food out for them.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Could be an outbreak of disease. I believe trichomonosis is still around and of late there has been a bird flu strain prevalent in many areas.
I don't know if the seasons play a part, we had a lot of tits and finches in the warmer weather, now only a few blue tits. I have seen the robins on the feeder, they don't normally use it, they hop around on the lawn. No pigeons, but they only come for gooseberries anyway.
In the winter Tits will fly around in large, mixed flocks looking for food. The ones local to us have a routine and will visit our garden at similar times each day. Perhaps yours have changed their routine (possibly down to a predator clocking in to their routine) and are visiting at different times? Alternatively they have found a better source of food or, in the colder weather, they are venturing further afield.
Has there been any flooding near you? The river meadows around us are flooded, and we are getting a lot more sparrow hawk activity at the moment and a lot fewer small birds visible as a result...
Maybe they had voted against Brexit and flew off to the continent. ;-)
We both commented today how many we have in the garden, seems more than normal.
We do live on the edge of a nature reserve and the trust is spending £m’s on the area and habitat
Pitch
https://www.bto.org2020 proved to be a poor breeding season for resident species, with five species (Blue and Great Tit, Song Thrush, Dunnock and Bullfinch) displaying below average productivity and none registering significant increases.
The hardest hit species were Blue and Great Tit, which exhibited 55% and 39% declines respectively, resulting in the lowest productivity estimates since CES monitoring began.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
I live in a very rural Gloucestershire location and have bird feeders all around a large garden. No reduction seen here. Everything from Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, finches, tits, robins etc. Buzzards, Kestrels and Sparrow Hawks are very common and in the last couple of years I've seen Red Kites here for the first time.
My folks have been feeding the same system of 5 feeders for 14 years now. Their kitchen window looks out on them, and we have done the RSPB big bird count from the window over several years with our kids as they have grown up.
Without doubt the biggest effect on the bird numbers at the feeders was the arrival of a Sparrowhawk about 5 years ago. Before the feeders became a regular stop on his pattern, you would often see 4-8, and up to 10 birds at once on the group of feeders, of many species including blue, great and coal tits, nuthatches, various finches and woodpeckers, with goldcrests and wrens in attendance clearing up the debris in the corners.
Over one summer the Sparrowhawk made a number of kills on or right next to the feeders (includng one our kids watched, rather shocked) and now you will literally never see more than 2 birds at once.
Interestingly, my dad reckons they go through nearly 60-70% of the amount of food that they did before it arrived, even though the number of birds in attendance has dropped off a cliff. This suggests that the smaller birds are feeding nearly as much, but are observing from a safe location then taking turns on the feeders with short visits rather than congregating there for a long feed.
Are you going through a similar amount of food? If so, this may be a possible explanation, and you are actually observing a change in behaviour, rather than a crash in population.
D
For context, my folks live in woodland, with very few or no local bird-predating cats (lots of badgers and foxes).
Thanks for all the replies and apologies for not replying sooner but I've been extremely busy.
To answer a few points - this time of year we usually get lots of tits and they're normally visiting the feeders throughout the day. I think Jools and Ralphy may have hit the nail on the head re disease/poor breeding season; an interesting link Ralph, thanksJust seemed strange that we're getting lots of blackbirds, robins, starlings and our regular/resident dunnock but the tits, (there were lots of them), suddenly stopped.
Will keep observing over the next week and see how things go.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Nope, the food isn't going down at all, (other than the ground feeder and bird table stuff which the blackbirds, robins, pigeons and dunnock are wolfing down). I've changed it in all the off-ground feeders in case it was 'going off' but hasn't made any difference.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
I don't have any answers but we just bought a three feeder station. Fat balls, peanuts and seeds. Didn't have any birds for a couple of weeks. Then a robin has been back and forth quite frequently. The past week we have had some bluetits, few sparrows with a pigeon that works round picking up the dropped seed.
Looked out yesterday and the seed was half gone with quite a bit on the floor. Afterwards I saw 3 birds on it going hell for leather on the seed. I think they maybe starlings, not sure though could do with getting a book on birds.
Tier 4?
On a serious note - I’ve noticed it too
I’ve got quite a few treats for the birds this year but I’m not seeing many at all
Will try to take pics tomorrow but absolutely no shortage of birds here seems to be a team effort too. All types of tits, finches and the likes on the feeders. Jackdaws and woodpigeons on the ground literally being fed by the smaller birds or so it wood seem. Throwing seed on the ground before feeding themselves. Oh, and a pair of spotted woodpeckers taking turns on the peanuts.
I have a long branch / perch set up in my garden between 2 fork mounts; 9 feeders hanging filled with various bird foods. The various tits, starlings, finches etc visit at different times every day ... with long-ish periods when no birds visit ... apart from scavenging dunnocks. When the birds are busy feeding it's mayhem ... then suddenly they depart for no particular reason ... but return later.
dunk
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
I wonder if there's any connection?
https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/01/...box=1609542428
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
I think I may have stumbled on the culprit....
Saw him chasing a small bird across the garden this morning. Didn't catch it, but sat on a neighbours fence for quite a while watching, presumably for other small birds, before flying off the way it came. Lynn tells me he's just done another 'fly past' without catching anything - will have to keep my eyes peeled.
Not the best of photo's as it was taken through a double glazed window.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
One outcome of lockdown is that I’ve taken far more notice of what’s in our urban garden. This week I can remember robins, goldfinches, starlings, crows, magpies, parakeets, pigeons, foxes sauntering along the back fence and shed roof, digging squirrels turning the lawn in to a cratered battle field. It’s a pleasure to watch them.
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Plenty of starlings here, and some particularly dense hooded crows that waited until the starlings had eaten everything before they came to the garden. So I bought some tennis balls, drilled a hole in them with a hole cutter and put peanuts in them, reckoning the starlings might have difficulty feeding from them. The crows came along to the roofs opposite, looked at the balls. Along came the collared doves, learnt to roll the balls about so that the holes were upwards, then shoved their heads in the holes and ate the nuts. Reckoning that might have given the crows a clue I tried putting the peanuts in the balls for a few weeks, and along would come the crows to sit on the foofs and watch the collared doves eating the nuts. Perhaps my hooded crows just enjoy watch other birds eating!
What a beauty!I think I may have stumbled on the culprit....
Saw him chasing a small bird across the garden this morning. Didn't catch it, but sat on a neighbours fence for quite a while watching, presumably for other small birds, before flying off the way it came. Lynn tells me he's just done another 'fly past' without catching anything - will have to keep my eyes peeled.
Not the best of photo's as it was taken through a double glazed window.
Doubt it if they knew they'd be dinner!
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Only visitors I've seen the last few days are the robin and a couple of pigeons. Even the crows have deserted!
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Lucky you to have one so close. Lovely shot
They wouldn't want to go anywhere near Malta.
We live near the coast and had a seagulls versus pigeons match yesterday. I think that one of the neighbours had put some food out and it was a free for all but the seagulls were very aggressive.
Good thing about lockdown was that a lot of people have discovered the wild life in their gardens.
Back on the summer people without work to go to in the morning were spending more time in their gardens sometimes until late in the evening (with a glass of wine/ beer?) and for me living near Heathrow airport and a stones throw from the M25 the garden has never been so quiet.
Now one night we were sitting with friends and a huge hedgehog came along the garden fence desperately looking for a way though to the neighbours garden, we had recently replaced a fence panel that had been down for along time and this was obviously his/her routine to get from garden to garden
So started an obsession with these endangered animals, the next morning I cut a 5”x5” inch hole in the fence (please do this too) and set up a inexpensive WiFi wildlife camera, I started to put out food and water, turns out we had at least three hogs using our garden every night!
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Last edited by dizz; 3rd January 2021 at 20:02.
Maybe should be compulsory. Also good for amphibians and small mammals. Our daft neighbours keep blocking the fox holes dug under the fence panels with bits of old timber, plastic, slate, whatever. The foxes just dig another hole further along, so instead of one fox hole, we have a long line of junk and still a fox hole.
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The decline in hedgehogs in the last ten years is thought to be between 25-40%, seems unbelievable that they may disappear from our gardens altogether, make a hole in your fence and in the summer a shallow bowl of water in the garden and you may well be part of their preservation. (There is more you can do to ensure they visit and possibly take up residence)
My WiFi camera was £18 from Amazon and the fun Ive had watching the hogs has been amazing.
Good place to find out more is
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/about...-disappearing/
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Last edited by dizz; 3rd January 2021 at 21:44.
I’m not surprised a Sparrowhawk appears to be the culprit, it usually is.
Having a top predator like that in your garden is actually a good sign of a healthy bird population.
One thing I’ve noticed is that after a while and after taking a few of the easy pickings (young/sick birds etc), the local bird population just shrinks away, and so the Sparrowhawk moves onto easier hunting grounds. They don’t usually over hunt an area, and in my garden the local jackdaws and crows seem to police them and chase Sparrowhawks away as well.
Natures raw in tooth and claw as they say, I’d hate the thought of a bird starving to death, even a Sparrowhawk!
This from yesterday ...think we have cornered the market for Finches..never seen so many Gold & Green Finches....
We have a few Kites that do freak them out but they seemingly have good visibility so can scarper pretty quickly for safety and to be fair the Birds of Prey around here seem not to waste time on the little stuff instead devouring Wood Pigeons which rightly or wrongly I think preferrable
Lovely & so very nice to see these “champagne moments “ associated with a childhood in the country .. especially the Bullfinch .
What part of the country is the haven , please ? ( ish will suffice )
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Yes the big Bullies are around most days and seem to be the ‘boss’ of the finches...
We are near Burscough Lancashire ....close to Martin Mere ...which is a great place for ornithologists..
We also have a family of 7 Long Tailed tits that are absolutely fabulous to watch...
Enjoy them all , in a lot very friendly part of the UK ... many happy memories of the hospitality from the good folk of Lancashire.
Long tail tits ... it is important that there is a biggish group of those as they huddle together for warmth at roost this time of the year , they are great to watch for their social antics .
Thank you for sharing your champagne moments.
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Great vid TKH, thanks for sharing. Still relatively quiet in our garden. We see then occasionally flying from the nearby trees, past our garden to a neighbours - so they're flying further to get food, which is puzzling.
We have a good variety of food available, including Sunflower Seeds, Peanuts, Fat Blocks, (purchased), Fat Blocks, (home made), various Mixed Seeds plus scraps from the table, (fat & rind from bacon, roast pork etc plus left over bread), so not sure what more we can do.
We had an extensive amount of work done 12 months ago, which necessitated the removal of a large number of bushes and small trees, so I wonder if it's the openness of the garden that they don't like as, when the do come, they grab a sunflower seed, bit of fat etc and immediately fly off into one of the neighbours bushes to eat it. I notice you've plenty of bushes and trees in your garden, though the birds there seem to stay on your feeders to eat.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
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