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

Sacha wrote:
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.

Funnily enough we were just talking about that today - our sparrow flock
(30+) has returned after going AWOL for a couple of weeks!

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.

Fantastic to see - will have to come down some time to look around the
nursery (with my DSLR for the bird pics!)


Please do. They're amazing to see and they're so confident, so at home. On
the one feeder outside my study window, I've had greenfinches, blue tits,
coal tits, sparrows and that obsessive blackbird. We have feeders inside
the main greenhouse and there's always a shallow cardboard box full of
crumbs and other bits and pieces for birds that prefer to eat that way. The
pheasants are back on the lawn in the very early morning just before the
dogs go out, too.

--
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.'