"Warwick" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

In article , Sue & Bob Hobden
writes


I don't know how long the Chlorate would take to break down in the nest,
but you'd be exposing the female to long periods of any chemical while
she incubates. This would be true for the chicks too who would be
sitting in a nest with some dosed dead moss until fledging. The chicks
wouldn't have much feather protection for some time and would be
spending time with thin skin pressed to moss. I'd tend to try to avoid
sprying any chemical around if the sprayed stuff was likely to end up in
a nest.

We water our moss with Armillatox and that does a good job (done last month)
It smells a bit (like disinfectant) but is environmentally friendly. Still
don't know if it would be good for lil chicks though.

Spraying where birds aren't collecting then yes, and spraying and
covering fine. The most recent surveys of bird life are showing such
drop offs in populations of small birds that I'd like to keep the risk
of even minor contamination as small as possible.

We see very little in our garden, but are so far assuming that it is
because we only started to implement the garden last year when we moved
in and cut down the leylandii.

Ours was the same four years ago but now we find it quite a challenge to
count the number of birds for the RSPB Garden Watch.

There are no shrubs, undergrowth or cover
that birds can use on their way to the feeding table as yet. This'll be
fixed in the next month or so (gardening schedule is slipping a lot due
to the puppy we gained in October and the baby on the way come July)

Congratulations on your already-arrived addition (our 'pup'is now two) and
extra special congrats on the two-legged expected addition (my first is due
in July too)

--A