"Judith in France" wrote in message
...
On Aug 12, 1:58 pm, "Spider" wrote:
"Judith in France" wrote in
...
On Aug 12, 1:23 pm, "Spider" wrote:



"Judith in France" wrote in
...
On Aug 12, 12:52 pm, "Spider" wrote:
(Snip)
Woodpeckers *love* fat balls, esp. the huge ones. An incidental bonus
is
that the ground feeders get the crumbs after the W'pecker has hammered
them
to pieces.

Spider

Spider, oh exalted knowledge of all stuff, yes, I am being sincere, I
have learned a lot of stuff from your postings,

:~) Blush! Ooooh, I've gone all over unnecessary!

tell me, a bird, pecking a hole in a bird box to get to the chicks
inside,
would that
be a woodpecker?

Yes, it's certainly possible. I've seen the Greater Spotted Woodpecker
at
a
nest box in my garden. I asked the Warden of the local wood about it and
he
wasn't in the least surprised. I didn't know whether to be glad I'd seen
'Woody', or to feel sorry for the chicks. (Typical wild life
non-intervention dilema).

As you can tell, I don't know one bird from another,
I even got a gull and a pigeon mixed up the other day.

:~)! Well, the silly things will all have beaks, won't they?! ... and
they
all look the same after a glass of red wine. It's time you dropped a
hint
about a good bird book for Christmas.

Spider
Judith

Yes, they all have beaks and two legs, how on earth am I supposed to
know!!! No more books please, I have a tome that I bought to help
identify mushrooms, unfortunately the colours in the book don't always
match the mushroom.

Judith

Quite. I have that problem with mushroom ident books, but I have one or
two
decent bird books which I find quite helpful. Even so, I occasionally get
muddled.
Well, I'm off to do some gardening now.
All the best,
Spider

Too hot here to go into the garden although I do needs potatoes for
tonight's supper, how is it my husband always disappears when I need
him? :-)

Judith


It's a man thing; they can't help it.

Well, I didn't get a lot done in the garden. A friend came by and asked if
I'd like to go to Homebase. I don't get out much (as the saying goes), so
off we went. Some time later I returned with 1 Miltonia orchid, Agapanthus
'Blue Storm' and a tub of fat balls ..!

I returned to the garden about 4ish o/c and shored up some earth in front of
my current project, then did some weeding. I would have done a lot more
weeding, but my dear Cheetah came to tell me (silently, by looming thinly)
that she was hungry. By the time moggy munch was served, it was raining and
the Husband Thingy was hungry. I would have gone out after dinner, but I
can't weed in a straight line after half a bottle of white wine :~)

Spider

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-08-12 12:52:48 +0100, "Spider" said:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-08-11 15:42:09 +0100, Steve said:

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:32:38 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2009-08-11 14:15:52 +0100, Steve said:

I find mine seem to prefer the sunflower seed whole rather than
dehulled, they seem to enjoy removing the shell. That said it's
pretty
quiet of late anyhow.

How do you find your seed mixes?

I'm also looking for decent bulk supplies say 20/25kg at a time. Any
recommendations? thnx

If you Google entering "wild bird seed bulk" you'll get a tremendous
range of choice.

Yes I do appreciate this. My thoughts were on recommendations from
those who buy a seed brand and it is all scoffed up. Normal wild bird
mix is fine for us here, but some contain a lot more of the cheap
wheat etc than others. Be nice to find a succesful good quality brand
at a good price.

We just seem to have blackbird/chaffinch/hedge
sparrow/dove/pigeon/woodpecker with occasional tit visitors so a
normal mix is fine as we cant really affored to specialise.

thnx to all.

I bought some from Seapets (yes, they do birdfood) and it's gone down a
treat. It's about £13.50 for 12.5kg IIRC. Your selection of birds
sounds
very like ours but I think wood peckers tend to go more for peanut
feeders.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


Woodpeckers *love* fat balls, esp. the huge ones. An incidental bonus is
that the ground feeders get the crumbs after the W'pecker has hammered
them
to pieces.

Spider

I've never seen them do that here but we have occasionally seen them on
old tree trunks in the field over the lane. Our old neighbour had them
coming to the peanut feeder regularly but never here.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


It's lovely to see. I've seen them on my peanut feeders as well, but not
often. I know my neighbours have seen a green woodpecker in their garden,
and I would really like to see that.

I once saw a Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding her young in an old dead
tree in our local wood. Magical ... unlike the pictures we tried to take
:~{.

Spider

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-08-12 22:23:10 +0100, "Spider" said:
snip
I would have gone out after dinner, but I
can't weed in a straight line after half a bottle of white wine :~)

Spider

LOL!! You could set up a whole new trend for 'after dinner design'. ;-))
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


:~) Well, they do 'wave' planting. We could do 'wobble' planting. Mmmm
... it might catch on.

Spider

In message , Steve
writes
I find mine seem to prefer the sunflower seed whole rather than
dehulled, they seem to enjoy removing the shell. That said it's pretty
quiet of late anyhow.

How do you find your seed mixes?

I'm also looking for decent bulk supplies say 20/25kg at a time. Any
recommendations? thnx

I only buy hulled sunflower seed, the birds won't touch the black seed.
I buy it at a local back street source so it won't help you much unless
you're in East Manchester, sorry, and I pay £33 for a 25Kg sack.
It is good quality.

All the other mixes produce a weed garden underneath the feeder, IME.
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

In article , Sacha
writes


If you Google entering "wild bird seed bulk" you'll get a tremendous
range of choice.



I have loads of birds visiting with CJ wild bird food no-mess mixes but
gardsman and Bill Oddie ones don't get eaten anywhere as near as much.
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

"Spider" wrote in message
...
I returned to the garden about 4ish o/c and shored up some earth in front
of my current project, then did some weeding. I would have done a lot
more weeding, but my dear Cheetah came to tell me (silently, by looming
thinly) that she was hungry. By the time moggy munch was served, it was
raining and the Husband Thingy was hungry. I would have gone out after
dinner, but I can't weed in a straight line after half a bottle of white
wine :~)

g

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-08-12 22:34:28 +0100, "Spider" said:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-08-12 22:23:10 +0100, "Spider" said:
snip
I would have gone out after dinner, but I
can't weed in a straight line after half a bottle of white wine :~)

Spider

LOL!! You could set up a whole new trend for 'after dinner design'.
;-))
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


:~) Well, they do 'wave' planting. We could do 'wobble' planting.
Mmmm
.. it might catch on.

Spider

Even while I like them, I always thinks those 'wave' hedges look as if
someone got at them by accident and turned it into a deliberate mistake.
;-)
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


I know what you mean, but I like them too. :~)

Spider

"Sacha" wrote
On 2009-08-12 22:30:31 +0100, "Spider" said:
snip

I once saw a Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding her young in an old
dead
tree in our local wood. Magical ... unlike the pictures we tried to
take
:~{.

It's the Greater Spotted that we've seen on the tree here but someone
saw a green near here last week, though we haven't seen it yet. Hope
we do.

*is quietly smug about having both kinds visiting the garden*

I do have to admit we don't see the Greater Spotted ones quite so often
though. The green ones regularly visit, sometimes to drink at the
birdbath and quite often poking around in the lawn, presumably after the
ants. And more power to them - we always seem to have ant nests all over
the place.

--
Sue

"Sacha" wrote
Luck you to see them so often.

yes, I do feel privileged to have them around.

It's very, very intermittent here and always causes a lot of
excitement when we hear that hammering noise. I've always thought it
a bit strange that someone living across the churchyard from us often
had woodpeckers on the peanut feeder in her garden and we never saw
them do that here, although we have several such feeders.

Yes, odd that, unless perhaps your garden is a busier place? They do
seem to be very shy birds and more easily spooked than our other garden
birds. If we see one of either sort it will fly off immediately it spots
the slightest human movement.
--
Sue

In message , Sue
writes

"Sacha" wrote
On 2009-08-12 22:30:31 +0100, "Spider" said:
snip

I once saw a Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding her young in an old
dead
tree in our local wood. Magical ... unlike the pictures we tried to
take
:~{.

It's the Greater Spotted that we've seen on the tree here but someone
saw a green near here last week, though we haven't seen it yet. Hope
we do.

*is quietly smug about having both kinds visiting the garden*

I do have to admit we don't see the Greater Spotted ones quite so often
though. The green ones regularly visit, sometimes to drink at the
birdbath and quite often poking around in the lawn, presumably after
the ants. And more power to them - we always seem to have ant nests all
over the place.


We have both kinds and they have very separate feeding habits.

The GSW's (just a male at the moment) visit the feeding station in the
rear garden several times each day where they eat peanuts and copious
amounts of fat cake.

The Green only feeds on the front lawn (20+ ant nests) but frequently
goes on to remind the neighbourhood of its presence, with unmistakable
screeching, from high up in next doors oak trees.

--
Robert

"robert" wrote
We have both kinds and they have very separate feeding habits.

The GSW's (just a male at the moment) visit the feeding station in the
rear garden several times each day where they eat peanuts and copious
amounts of fat cake.

The Green only feeds on the front lawn (20+ ant nests) but frequently
goes on to remind the neighbourhood of its presence, with unmistakable
screeching, from high up in next doors oak trees.

I remember watching while one adult GSW brought two red-headed
youngsters to sample the offerings at our peanut feeder and that was
lovely. Normally we only see one at a time.

The Greens certainly do screech, don't they - rather like a wild
maniacal laugh, I always think. Which is rather appropriate as they
frequently go 'up the pole' on a telegraph pole in the field behind us,
just as if it was only another tree. Well I suppose it was once.

--
Sue

I appreciate that. My idea is to recommend those who buy seed brand, it is all a mockery. Normal wild birds combination is fine, we are here, but some contain more low-cost wheat than the other person.