On 18/12/2012 13:27, Ragnar wrote:
"Baz" wrote in message
...
John Rye wrote in
:

Hello All

In article ,
Baz wrote:
I am very pleased that we have a nice bird population in the garden
now that we have managed to sort out some nice feed for them.
Snag is that I can see evidence of rats. The birds are messy eaters
and drop lots of suff the rat can scavenge.
Anyone else have this problem? What to do?

Thanks
Baz

May be you need to attract a pheasant. I have a beautiful male that
spends a good part of the day sat on the ground under our bird feeders
waiting for the small birds to drop something. At present I am
enjoying watching him. I shall not be so happy if he turns his
attention to my vegetable patch.

John


You know what, John, I can't remember the last time I saw, or even heard a
phesant in the last year or two. They were once very common here in
Lincolnshire. I have heard it said that foxes can be just one culprit
because they like to eat pheasant eggs. Foxes are very common now here and
used to be very rare indeed. I suppose that is a result of the hunt ban
and
no predators.

Baz

I was talking to a farmer last week who said pheasant and partridge numbers
are way down lately because of the spread of buzzards in recent years.
R.

More likely due to a shortage of bankers bonuses and so much less
incentive for shoots to restock heavily. I know a couple round here that
would normally have a couple of thousand birds a year have folded.

There are still plenty of wild ones though in North Yorkshire same for
grouse. Although the game stock included some weird looking melanistic
pheasants that are the right shape but almost black.

Regards,
Martin Brown