Elaine Jones wrote:
Quoting from message
posted on 21 Mar 2004 by Colonel Bloomer
I would like to add:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it,
in
my garden the mags live happily side by side with the other
birdies and I cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey
here,
so not that common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting
time their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any
eggs and fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy
co-existance is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

Magpies will actively seek the nests of domestic hens, whether in
hedge- bottoms or nesting boxes inside henhouses - the reason why
Dad
always had a catapult and pile of pebbles to hand.

As stated above magpies will thieve eggs and fledglings. Magpies are
on the increase and are pests+++.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.

--
ned

Elaine Jones wrote:
Quoting from message
posted on 21 Mar 2004 by Colonel Bloomer
I would like to add:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it,
in
my garden the mags live happily side by side with the other
birdies and I cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey
here,
so not that common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting
time their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any
eggs and fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy
co-existance is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

Magpies will actively seek the nests of domestic hens, whether in
hedge- bottoms or nesting boxes inside henhouses - the reason why
Dad
always had a catapult and pile of pebbles to hand.

As stated above magpies will thieve eggs and fledglings. Magpies are
on the increase and are pests+++.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.

--
ned

Elaine Jones wrote:
Quoting from message
posted on 21 Mar 2004 by Colonel Bloomer
I would like to add:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it,
in
my garden the mags live happily side by side with the other
birdies and I cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey
here,
so not that common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting
time their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any
eggs and fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy
co-existance is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

Magpies will actively seek the nests of domestic hens, whether in
hedge- bottoms or nesting boxes inside henhouses - the reason why
Dad
always had a catapult and pile of pebbles to hand.

As stated above magpies will thieve eggs and fledglings. Magpies are
on the increase and are pests+++.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.

--
ned

Elaine Jones wrote:
Quoting from message
posted on 21 Mar 2004 by Colonel Bloomer
I would like to add:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it,
in
my garden the mags live happily side by side with the other
birdies and I cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey
here,
so not that common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting
time their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any
eggs and fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy
co-existance is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

Magpies will actively seek the nests of domestic hens, whether in
hedge- bottoms or nesting boxes inside henhouses - the reason why
Dad
always had a catapult and pile of pebbles to hand.

As stated above magpies will thieve eggs and fledglings. Magpies are
on the increase and are pests+++.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.

--
ned

Elaine Jones wrote:
Quoting from message
posted on 21 Mar 2004 by Colonel Bloomer
I would like to add:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:22:23 -0000, "ned" wrote:

Colonel Bloomer wrote:

big snip

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it,
in
my garden the mags live happily side by side with the other
birdies and I cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey
here,
so not that common I'd guess.

Magpies are corvids (crow family) and are scavengers. At nesting
time their opportunistic instincts take over and they thieve any
eggs and fledgelings they can find. Whether that equates to happy
co-existance is a matter of debate. :-))

Opportunistic and actively seeking out are completely different
issues, certainly in my garden the mags will not actively seek out
birds nests or chicks. Last year we successfully saw blackbird and
blue tit chicks leave the nest.

Magpies will actively seek the nests of domestic hens, whether in
hedge- bottoms or nesting boxes inside henhouses - the reason why
Dad
always had a catapult and pile of pebbles to hand.

As stated above magpies will thieve eggs and fledglings. Magpies are
on the increase and are pests+++.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.

--
ned

ned writes
Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.


Local spars work gardens and feeders in particular on a regular basis.
The villagers are torn between having such an elegant bird and having
fewer small birds (up to collared doves+). They seem to be far more
effective than cats, not surprising really as flying away is no escape.

Having watched a kite taking (wild) duckings out of grassland one after
another over a period of several hours one day one cannot but be
impressed with their skills. It just flew down like a helicopter,
hovered and then gently came down on a chick which it delicately removed
from the grass. Off to close pluckpost then back for another.

In passing one seems to have spars seen regularly in a (small) area for
a couple of years and then they are gone, only returning some four or
five years later.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use.

"Colonel Bloomer" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:32:25 -0000, "Tumbleweed"
wrote:


"Colonel Bloomer" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:46:05 +0000, Mike McDowall
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:56:48 -0000, "Christina Websell"
christina.websell@zoomdotcodotuk wrote:

I have some news that I know you'll be interested in, Mike, about the
house
sparrow project. Kate rang me last night, she is now writing up her
conclusions.
The conclusion is, lack of aphids and invertebrates as the main cause
of
the
house sparrow decline, lack of nestsites also.
Thanks for this Christina. I have discussed this with loads of friends
over the years, and all are agreed that there are far fewer flies of
many kinds than ~30 years ago. The next question is why ?

Too many tidy gardens and houses.
In what way ? I would also consider farmland, but as a farmer I am fed
up of certain conservation organisations who _only_ consider farmland.

I suspect that 30 year period has seen a vast increase in use of
insecticides. We need very little to farm in Scotland compared with SE
England. Even so, our sparrow population has been on a roller coaster
ride, and now I have some sparrows, while my neighbour has none. What
is more perplexing is that he keeps cattle, and I have no livestock.

While we don't use as much insecticide, there are certain crops which
are vulnerable and often treated. Seed potatoes are a particularly
vulnerable crop, but less obvious crops such as spring sown oil seed
rape almost always need insecticide.

I have another area of concern, which is the autumn use of pyrethroids
on cereals. This is to prevent aphid vectors spreading disease. My
first concern is that our advice is that this is environmentally sound
practice (enough to get me worried). Secondly, if we chop a sector out
of the annual cycle too effectively, can the beasties recover ?

Can any gardeners / town house holders identify common practices that
they think might be worth examining ? trends in usage or behaviour
that might correlate with observations on population ?


Interesting post and a worthy crosspost to relevant groups to open the
discussion, if we are to ever solve the mystery.

I think trying to enforce a complete and artificial environments is to
blame. Gardeners who don't like creepie crawlies and farmers who
simply hate the idea of anything else getting a free meal. We see this
day in and day out with people whining "how do I get rid of" such and
such a pest, insect. I would suggest if people cannot live with nature
as it is then they should look elsewhere for amusement, preferably at
something that will not destroy our planet eventually.

I think bugs may be good logic. My seed feeders are hardly touched by
sparrers (south london) or rather they are touched and then promptly
dumped on the ground. Maybe we are just bringing a generation of
sparrers that don't know how to eat seeds!

Maybe the buggers are getting fussy in their old age, maybe seeds aint
what they used to be?


ISTR reading a few years ago that the number of sparrow hawks had risen
hugely since the 1940's, maybe to 50,000 or more, whereas 60 years ago or
so
they were persecuted and very few and far between. If the difference was
say, 40,000 sparrowhawks between then and now, and they each ate 1
sparrow a
day, that would be 14 million less sparrows a year. Plus, every day I see
loads of magpies (probably 10 or 20), which I believe eat other birds
eggs.
When I was a kid I don't think I ever saw one. I would guess the number
of
magpies must have risen 10 fold in the last 30-40 years. That must
account
for a fair few sparrows (and similar) as well. Certainly there are lots
of
aphids and the like in my garden in the summer and I would have said that
most gardeners nowadays used less chemicals than 30 years ago. You
certainly
cant have a rise in the number of predators and expect the prey to remain
constant, after all isn't that the point of all this organic gardening we
hear about, encouraging predators such as hoverfly and ladybirds into
gardens? If that works for them, I don't see why it wouldn't work for
sparrow hawks/ sparrows as well.

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it, in my
garden the mags live happily side by side with the other birdies and I
cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey here, so not that
common I'd guess.



If magpies eat the eggs and not the adults, what would you expect to see?
Sparrows calling the police?
50,000 sparrow hawks is still quite rare, people are saying there is a
shortage of sparrows yet there are millions of them!

--
Tumbleweed

Remove my socks for email address

"Oz" wrote in message
...
ned writes
Yes, contrary to popular belief, Nature is not the pretty, pretty
civilised environment that some think it is. It is a harsh, cruel
place to survive in. Everything has its place in the predatory chain
and anything that dies of old age is mighty fortunate.
Hunger will very quickly transform an opportunistic feeder to seek out
an easy meal.


Local spars work gardens and feeders in particular on a regular basis.
The villagers are torn between having such an elegant bird and having
fewer small birds (up to collared doves+). They seem to be far more
effective than cats, not surprising really as flying away is no escape.


snip
Thats another factor, cats, though I dont know if there are more than there
used to be. And windows. There must be a lot more, and a lot larger windows
than say 50 years ago. Windows are responsible for huge numbers of bird
deaths every year. (that Bill Gates has a lot to be balmed for)
--
Tumbleweed

Remove my socks for email address

On 21 Mar 2004 23:00:39 GMT, (Doctor J.
Frink) wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:14:37 +0000, Colonel Bloomer wrote:
On 21 Mar 2004 21:34:23 GMT, (Doctor J.
Frink) wrote:

As a datum-point: we had a sparrowhawk take a starling in our terrace
backyard the other day, in Milton Keynes. We've only had birds regularly
visiting for a few weeks prior to this (only recently set up food/drink
for the tweeters).

We're getting lots of sparrows, which appear to be scaring off the tits
which were the first to scout out the grub. The mixed seed is going down
very quickly whilst the peanuts are barely being touched.

Is the seed actually being eaten or is it all ending up on the floor
as the fussy gits spit it out?

A lot is ending up on the floor, although it's hard to tell how much as
it's all stones under the feeders and we have the occassional dunnock
clearing up after them. Watching them eat they are regularly spitting
out seeds, but it's hard to tell what the ratio is of eaten seeds to
spat out ones.

I must assume they're eating some of it, otherwise why would they keep
coming back? ;0) Anyway, we put bread out as well and something keeps
clearing most of that up.

Best have a combine harvester handy just in case the seeds take root,
and they will lol.

I suppose each garden is different and could be tailored to it's
visitors. Quite interesting really to see who eats what. Not sure what
the best food for sparrers is though.

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 07:54:19 -0000, "Tumbleweed"
wrote:


"Colonel Bloomer" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:32:25 -0000, "Tumbleweed"
wrote:


"Colonel Bloomer" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:46:05 +0000, Mike McDowall
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:56:48 -0000, "Christina Websell"
christina.websell@zoomdotcodotuk wrote:

I have some news that I know you'll be interested in, Mike, about the
house
sparrow project. Kate rang me last night, she is now writing up her
conclusions.
The conclusion is, lack of aphids and invertebrates as the main cause
of
the
house sparrow decline, lack of nestsites also.
Thanks for this Christina. I have discussed this with loads of friends
over the years, and all are agreed that there are far fewer flies of
many kinds than ~30 years ago. The next question is why ?

Too many tidy gardens and houses.
In what way ? I would also consider farmland, but as a farmer I am fed
up of certain conservation organisations who _only_ consider farmland.

I suspect that 30 year period has seen a vast increase in use of
insecticides. We need very little to farm in Scotland compared with SE
England. Even so, our sparrow population has been on a roller coaster
ride, and now I have some sparrows, while my neighbour has none. What
is more perplexing is that he keeps cattle, and I have no livestock.

While we don't use as much insecticide, there are certain crops which
are vulnerable and often treated. Seed potatoes are a particularly
vulnerable crop, but less obvious crops such as spring sown oil seed
rape almost always need insecticide.

I have another area of concern, which is the autumn use of pyrethroids
on cereals. This is to prevent aphid vectors spreading disease. My
first concern is that our advice is that this is environmentally sound
practice (enough to get me worried). Secondly, if we chop a sector out
of the annual cycle too effectively, can the beasties recover ?

Can any gardeners / town house holders identify common practices that
they think might be worth examining ? trends in usage or behaviour
that might correlate with observations on population ?


Interesting post and a worthy crosspost to relevant groups to open the
discussion, if we are to ever solve the mystery.

I think trying to enforce a complete and artificial environments is to
blame. Gardeners who don't like creepie crawlies and farmers who
simply hate the idea of anything else getting a free meal. We see this
day in and day out with people whining "how do I get rid of" such and
such a pest, insect. I would suggest if people cannot live with nature
as it is then they should look elsewhere for amusement, preferably at
something that will not destroy our planet eventually.

I think bugs may be good logic. My seed feeders are hardly touched by
sparrers (south london) or rather they are touched and then promptly
dumped on the ground. Maybe we are just bringing a generation of
sparrers that don't know how to eat seeds!

Maybe the buggers are getting fussy in their old age, maybe seeds aint
what they used to be?


ISTR reading a few years ago that the number of sparrow hawks had risen
hugely since the 1940's, maybe to 50,000 or more, whereas 60 years ago or
so
they were persecuted and very few and far between. If the difference was
say, 40,000 sparrowhawks between then and now, and they each ate 1
sparrow a
day, that would be 14 million less sparrows a year. Plus, every day I see
loads of magpies (probably 10 or 20), which I believe eat other birds
eggs.
When I was a kid I don't think I ever saw one. I would guess the number
of
magpies must have risen 10 fold in the last 30-40 years. That must
account
for a fair few sparrows (and similar) as well. Certainly there are lots
of
aphids and the like in my garden in the summer and I would have said that
most gardeners nowadays used less chemicals than 30 years ago. You
certainly
cant have a rise in the number of predators and expect the prey to remain
constant, after all isn't that the point of all this organic gardening we
hear about, encouraging predators such as hoverfly and ladybirds into
gardens? If that works for them, I don't see why it wouldn't work for
sparrow hawks/ sparrows as well.

Interesting points and quite feasible. However I don't wear it, in my
garden the mags live happily side by side with the other birdies and I
cant recall the last time I saw a bird of prey here, so not that
common I'd guess.



If magpies eat the eggs and not the adults, what would you expect to see?

Missing eggs? The nests in our gardens are checked regular.

Sparrows calling the police?

Well mobiles are getting smaller.

50,000 sparrow hawks is still quite rare, people are saying there is a
shortage of sparrows yet there are millions of them!

Not here there isn't.

Tumbleweed writes

Thats another factor, cats, though I dont know if there are more than there
used to be.

Shouldn't think so.

And windows. There must be a lot more, and a lot larger windows
than say 50 years ago.

Yes, but the window owners feed birds much more than they used to.
The cat owners tend to as well. We do.

Windows are responsible for huge numbers of bird
deaths every year.

Yes, but they very soon learn. One gets the odd few bashes when birds
first fledge, unless cat gets stunned bird they seem to recover quickly.
After that its rare unless spar is about who has learned that spooking
birds to mindlessly flee at speed through a window makes for an easy
meal (seriously).

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use.

On Monday, in article
"Oz" wrote:

In passing one seems to have spars seen regularly in a (small) area for
a couple of years and then they are gone, only returning some four or
five years later.

Yes, and it took a long time to persuade some ecologists that even very
simple mathematical models could show chaotic behaviour. That's now
fairly well-understood, and short-term population crashes are not viewed
with the same professional alarm. The trouble is that it's hard to
distinguish the chaotic pattern from some real disaster, and, since
birds are so mobile, breeding populations are hard to localise.

Still, there is a difference between local boom-bust patterns and the
larger-scale population. If Oz sees a population crash, with no
apparent reason, it'd not a big worry. If a lot of other people see the
same...

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"History shows that the Singularity started when Sir Tim Berners-Lee
was bitten by a radioactive spider."

David G. Bell writes
On Monday, in article
"Oz" wrote:

In passing one seems to have spars seen regularly in a (small) area for
a couple of years and then they are gone, only returning some four or
five years later.

Yes, and it took a long time to persuade some ecologists that even very
simple mathematical models could show chaotic behaviour. That's now
fairly well-understood, and short-term population crashes are not viewed
with the same professional alarm. The trouble is that it's hard to
distinguish the chaotic pattern from some real disaster, and, since
birds are so mobile, breeding populations are hard to localise.

Still, there is a difference between local boom-bust patterns and the
larger-scale population. If Oz sees a population crash, with no
apparent reason, it'd not a big worry. If a lot of other people see the
same...

The reason is only too apparent:
the spar has run out of small birds in its area.

As noticed by visitors to birdtable.
Incidentally they have *never* been as numerous as they were before
spars appeared. This is despite siting birdtable close to cover and
under branches, severely impeding spar attack.
Damned squirrels, though ...

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use.

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On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 09:10:07 +0000, Oz
wrote:

David G. Bell writes
On Monday, in article
"Oz" wrote:

In passing one seems to have spars seen regularly in a (small) area for
a couple of years and then they are gone, only returning some four or
five years later.

Yes, and it took a long time to persuade some ecologists that even very
simple mathematical models could show chaotic behaviour. That's now
fairly well-understood, and short-term population crashes are not viewed
with the same professional alarm. The trouble is that it's hard to
distinguish the chaotic pattern from some real disaster, and, since
birds are so mobile, breeding populations are hard to localise.

Still, there is a difference between local boom-bust patterns and the
larger-scale population. If Oz sees a population crash, with no
apparent reason, it'd not a big worry. If a lot of other people see the
same...

The reason is only too apparent:
the spar has run out of small birds in its area.

As noticed by visitors to birdtable.
Incidentally they have *never* been as numerous as they were before
spars appeared. This is despite siting birdtable close to cover and
under branches, severely impeding spar attack.

Hang food under a CD.

In article , Oz
writes
David G. Bell writes
On Monday, in article
"Oz" wrote:

In passing one seems to have spars seen regularly in a (small) area for
a couple of years and then they are gone, only returning some four or
five years later.

Yes, and it took a long time to persuade some ecologists that even very
simple mathematical models could show chaotic behaviour. That's now
fairly well-understood, and short-term population crashes are not viewed
with the same professional alarm. The trouble is that it's hard to
distinguish the chaotic pattern from some real disaster, and, since
birds are so mobile, breeding populations are hard to localise.

Still, there is a difference between local boom-bust patterns and the
larger-scale population. If Oz sees a population crash, with no
apparent reason, it'd not a big worry. If a lot of other people see the
same...

The reason is only too apparent:
the spar has run out of small birds in its area.

As noticed by visitors to birdtable.
Incidentally they have *never* been as numerous as they were before
spars appeared. This is despite siting birdtable close to cover and
under branches, severely impeding spar attack.
Damned squirrels, though ...

In that sense, I'm fortunate in living where there are no squirrels!
However, I have been feeding between 50 and 80 sparrows throughout the
winter, plus 30 or so chaffinches and assorted other birds, including
starlings and collared doves, all of which have in turn been helping to
feed a pair of sparrowhawks. Numbers of both sparrows and chaffinches
have been higher this winter than last, presumably because of a good
breeding season last year.

--
Malcolm