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A danger for fledglings.
I received the following email today:
Every year, the nestlings/fledgelings of house-nesting birds die agonising deaths. Apart from cats getting the young, the nestlings/fledgelings walk along gutterings. When they encounter the swan-necks of gutterings, they try to hop across the swan-neck's orifice, but, sadly, most young birds do not get across, they falling in to the swan-neck pipes. Then they plummet right down the virtical downpipe. The downpipes end piece is below ground, where a gulley is there to drain away the house roof's rainwater. Unless rescued from this entombed disaster, the young will die, of cold, fear, etc, maybe even drowning should their be a torrential downpour sending torrents of cold water down the downpipes. My brother lived in a council house. He and I heard distress cheaping coming from a cast-iron downpipe of his house. I put my ear to the ground-level end of the pipe, whereby I could easily determine a young bird or young birds were entombed below ground. We smashed the pipe at ground-level, shone a torch down the hole, noticed two wet, bedraggled, frightened young fledgelings there. Then we made a lasso, tied it to a thin garden cane, lowered the noose in to the hole, then intricately lassoed each one in turn, then returned them to their parents' nest. My brother then put a wire mesh cone in the orifice of all his guttering swan-necks, as did I for our swan-necks But, the wire cone must not have any jagged bits sticking up from the swan-necks. The top of the cone should prefariably stand about 4 or so inches proud of the swan-necks' orifices, then the young will not be able to even traverse further along the guttering away from their nest areas. Plastic mesh cones would be best. Apart from the cones saving birds' lives, the cones stop roof moss, leaves, etc, from blocking up the swan-necks' orifices. This bird hazard also applys to any non-residential buildings that have gutterings and downpipes. Birds even plummet down between wall cavities, the void between a house's outside wall and its inner wall, unless wall cavity insulation has been installed in the cavities. Wall cavity insulation is then a bird's saviour, otherwise the bird/s can plummet down the cavities to below ground level, about 12 inches to maybe 18 inches from the top of your ground floor hallway level. If that happens, and by a miracle you hear their desperate cries, and cleverly detect they are in the void of the wall, the only way to rescue them is to smash a 3 or 4 ft length of your bottom course of hallway brickwork away, about 3 brick layers high, so you can put a mirror in and shine a torch on to the mirror to keep focusing around to see them. I did this to my hallway, and rescued 4 young starlings. Best wishes. Francis H. Giles Please relay this info to as many bird-caring folk as possible by whatever means of communication. Many thanks! Angus Macmillan www.roots-of-blood.org.uk www.killhunting.org www.con-servation.org.uk All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) |
#2
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A danger for fledglings.
wrote in message
... I received the following email today: Every year, the nestlings/fledgelings of house-nesting birds die agonising deaths. Apart from cats getting the young, the nestlings/fledgelings walk along gutterings. When they encounter the swan-necks of gutterings, they try to hop across the swan-neck's orifice, but, sadly, most young birds do not get across, they falling in to the swan-neck pipes. Then they plummet right down the virtical downpipe. The downpipes end piece is below ground, where a gulley is there to drain away the house roof's rainwater. Unless rescued from this entombed disaster, the young will die, of cold, fear, etc, maybe even drowning should their be a torrential downpour sending torrents of cold water down the downpipes. My brother lived in a council house. He and I heard distress cheaping coming from a cast-iron downpipe of his house. I put my ear to the ground-level end of the pipe, whereby I could easily determine a young bird or young birds were entombed below ground. We smashed the pipe at ground-level, shone a torch down the hole, noticed two wet, bedraggled, frightened young fledgelings there. Then we made a lasso, tied it to a thin garden cane, lowered the noose in to the hole, then intricately lassoed each one in turn, then returned them to their parents' nest. My brother then put a wire mesh cone in the orifice of all his guttering swan-necks, as did I for our swan-necks But, the wire cone must not have any jagged bits sticking up from the swan-necks. The top of the cone should prefariably stand about 4 or so inches proud of the swan-necks' orifices, then the young will not be able to even traverse further along the guttering away from their nest areas. Plastic mesh cones would be best. Apart from the cones saving birds' lives, the cones stop roof moss, leaves, etc, from blocking up the swan-necks' orifices. This bird hazard also applys to any non-residential buildings that have gutterings and downpipes. Birds even plummet down between wall cavities, the void between a house's outside wall and its inner wall, unless wall cavity insulation has been installed in the cavities. Wall cavity insulation is then a bird's saviour, otherwise the bird/s can plummet down the cavities to below ground level, about 12 inches to maybe 18 inches from the top of your ground floor hallway level. If that happens, and by a miracle you hear their desperate cries, and cleverly detect they are in the void of the wall, the only way to rescue them is to smash a 3 or 4 ft length of your bottom course of hallway brickwork away, about 3 brick layers high, so you can put a mirror in and shine a torch on to the mirror to keep focusing around to see them. I did this to my hallway, and rescued 4 young starlings. Best wishes. Francis H. Giles Please relay this info to as many bird-caring folk as possible by whatever means of communication. Many thanks! Angus Macmillan www.roots-of-blood.org.uk www.killhunting.org www.con-servation.org.uk All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) Good on you....All things bright and beautiful. -- Regards p.mc |
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