On 19/1/08 18:04, in article , "cupra"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 19/1/08 14:15, in article , "Wally"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
Should we feed the birds all year round? We do but are we doing
more harm than good?

I don't, I just feed in winter when food is thin on the ground.
In the rest of the year let them eat the bugs that destroy our crops.

But that's the reason to go on putting out feed, though perhaps in
smaller quantities. They know there will still be food in your
garden but they'll eat the bugs too.

I find that the number of visitors falls, anyhow, when food is common
elsewhere - mind you, the grape vine is 'elsewhere' for the Starlings!



Yes indeed. Our blackbirds disappeared for a month or two and worried us
silly. Now they're back and feeding voraciously. The rooks go off on a
holiday every year. This year, because they've lost 3 trees from their
rookery, perhaps, they appear to us to be marking out their territory
earlier in the remaining trees.
Birds will suit themselves but if we put out food for them, they will come
back to it over and over again. I notice that sometimes bird feeders are
emptied in a matter of 3 days or less but that at other times, the seed
remains there much longer. This must be to do with what else is available
to them, the weather and who else is putting out bird feeders etc. But we
do know that our birds always return and they nest in the garden and in the
greenhouses, year after year, eating not just food from us but the insects
etc. As we use biological controls here, they're all part of that
programme.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'