RSPB big garden survey 2025

Are you OK with little birds, @Michael Hewett? I like them outside, but when one occasionally ventures into the house by mistake, I’m a bit freaked. Don’t like to see any birds in cages either.

 

The vagaries of birds - yesterday, 2 Bullfinch in the garden virtually all day.
Today - zip, zilch.

 

Little birds are not too bad as long as they don't come too close, but I can't actually 'look' at them. When Bella once caught a bird and brought it into the house (it was dead) I had to ask a neighbour to remove it. Thankfully she has only caught two birds in her life.
I don't think birds should be kept in cages either.

 

That sounds like a really difficult phobia to live with. Have you ever tried getting treatment? Maybe they could desensitise you by locking you in a room with a duck ...

 

No I haven't tried any treatment, there's no need, I've coped with it perfectly well all my life ... and I don't want to be locked in a room with a duck or anything else thank you very much !

 

I have a bird phobia! As a nature lover, I love having them in my garden but if one comes near I freak out! I walk to avoid pigeons too. It’s the flapping I think (not keen on moths either) but a dead bird is equally horrific. We had an escaped budgie that flew into work once and I shut myself in a cubicle for an hour until it was removed.

 

I keep crossing the road in a town, to avoid them, they're so stupid they won't fly away.
When Beryl (late partner) was alive she used to walk in front of me, to shoo them away She didn't mind - she was afraid of spiders and I had to remove them from the house for her.

 

I am fine with spiders. Evolutionary biology does make us susceptible to disliking crawling and fast-moving critters (spiders, snakes etc) as a survival mechanism. When I tell people I dislike birds they often say “they won’t hurt you”. I know that! That’s not the issue!

 

I wonder where a particular person’s phobia comes from? An early unpleasant experience? Or a parent passing on their own phobia to their children?

Before he met me (an arachnophile) my OH was terrified of spiders. But he’d grown up in a country where some spiders can kill you. After he saw me rescuing trapped spiders by picking them up, he grew to tolerate them and, after seeing microscope photos of them, even to admire them.

I have a phobia about travelling in cars, which makes life somewhat awkward, but I was involved in a high speed smash on the A1 in the days when it was a no-speed-limit dual carriageway with side roads crossing it and I’ve never forgotten the spinning and spinning… Could never go near the dodgems at fairs…

 

It's strange how things work out and how we can be so different. I have no problem with birds (used to breed budgies 50 years ago and had an aviary) but spiders are a definite no-no. Also large insects like dragonflies freak me out and I run away from them in the garden ....I find then simply appalling

 

RSPB just posted this on X, it's a conversation between a wood pigeon and a starling about how to scupper someone's count.

x.com