ALARMING........

Anyone else got the same as me? An acute shortage of small birds!
This time of the year we start putting food out for the birds and usally we get daily visits from a wide variety.
Not so this year; all we see so far are blackbirds and two collared doves. I've not seen a great tit or blue; the chaffinch or the green not to mention robins or wrens...... Not nice is is?

 

I have literally hundreds of birds visiting my feeders and garden.

If you have just recently resumed feeding, it will probably take a few days or a week or so for them to find the full feeders. If, in the past you have been successful then, unless the habitat has radically altered, they should soon return.

 

Loads here too, just been feeding my Rook friends

Might be that there's still loads of berries in the hedgerows for them still.

 

No shortage here either. In fact, we have noticed a few new species around. One of those being is a bird of prey.

 

Back in November we had just a few birds coming in, then all the farmers around here cut there hedges at the same time then the bird numbers double, but we are not seeing the amount of birds as in a few years ago, the cold weather has bought more blackbirds and Feildfare in but numbers are down
I have seen a few Blue tits flying around not to the feeders but to trees shrubs etc and finding the bugs and grubs

 

We did have a sparrowhawk nesting not far from us this year, and we do seem to have more cats than normal.
We shall continue feeding and look on the bright side, fatter blackbirds!

 

Usual ones arrived here, two robins, six blackbirds (male) six blue tits, two wood pigeons
With a first for us a Red Legged Partridge, it has been waddling around the gardens for six weeks now, occasionally flaps it's way up on to a shed roof, amazed non of the street cats have had it yet

 

Average of 15 Sparrows and up to 20 Starlings daily plus the 4 Woodies (unless I see them!!!), the Blackbirds have come back after a three month absence. Dunnocks, Robin, Wren, Chaffinch are around and Blue, Great Tits and Goldfinch are now irregular. Pied Wagtail drops in ocassionally as does the Sparrowhawk. Haven't seen a Siskin for a few months.

Not every bird you see in the garden may be a resident as we have large numbers (thousands) of Robins, Blackbirds, Blackcaps, Thrushes, Pied Wagtails and Goldcrest coming here for the Winter from Central Europe, the only way you can tell them apart is by their accent!

Seriously though, many common birds have sadly declined here and in Europe due to several factors, trapping and hunting on a large scale in the Med (10,000 'hunters' in Malta alone!!!) plus Egypt and loss of habitat here as well as in Africa being the main reasons.

 

There has been a thrush high in a tree whistling all day, it started before dawn and was still there at 3pm, the mild temps must be making it think its spring already.

 

The birds are as mixed up as the rest of nature Pete. We've still got geese flying south here and it won't be long before they have to turn round and come back!

 

There hasn't been a lot of action on the bird feeders here up until the last week. I have a feeding station with seed feeder, nut feeder and fat block. I also have a fat ball feeder and seed feeder in the tree. Lots of tits, sparrows and 2 robins. We also get a lot of Black birds, but if I put stuff on the floor it attracts a lot of pigeons, which eat all the food and thank me by crapping all over the patio. I need to make/invest in a ground feeder.

Rusty