View Full Version : Those Darling Starlings!
We have recently had an influx of loads of baby starlings invade our garden.
Just recently I have taken to putting out fat balls on two special holders on a couple of our trees for the smaller birds; but the darling starlings have taken them over and they fight :box: every bird that dares to go near them :angry:
This morning I have had to remove these fat balls because of the noise these babies were making when they were fighting each other to get to these balls; they have learnt how to hang onto the balls; they seem to be a new breed of "bully boys" :box: in the bird family and could do with an ASBO slapped on them :hihi: :hihi:
Now I only have the sunflower hearts in containers for the finches and sparrows!
Nice to see a fellow bird feeder!
I have tons of fledgling starlings now and the little horrors fight all the time but are really bad at it. They are way too tame right now so I scare them a lot, it does not stop them coming back but I cannot have them sat there while I am in arm's reach. I am more pleased to see the huge sparrow attendance that I had last year is starting to reappear. I know they will have died in droves in the winter in spite of my efforts.
I tend to put luxury oil rich seed mixes in my hanging feeders at the moment that suits all the birds that feed up high, and a sort of rolled oats, seed and sultana mixed on the platforms and ground trays. I only put suet mixes out in the autumn and winter ... but I do put out half coconut shells spread inside with Whole Earth crunchy peanut butter (got to be that brand or too much fats sugars and salts in the ordinary stuff).
I never did have much success with finches until late in the season, although I do have a finch feed hanger. I think my last year's greenfinch visitors were decimated with disease - I know they are vulnerable and a couple of goldfinches put and appearance for just a short time.
We seem to have loads of big birds - carrion crows, magpies, Eurasian jays, and the occasional sparrow hawk and I put out dried cat food and sultana mixes for the ground birds and peanuts in shells for the jays and magpies. I have a delightful pair of collared doves that call on my feeders.
Even though I am not putting out wheat feed I have a most unwelcome family of pigeons that visit twice a day. The only saving grace is there is one leucristic one that is beautiful.
Just finished doing the fortnightly big cleanup and the starlings and sparrows sat on the top of the trellises and moaned at me to hurry up during the whole exercise. it is raining now, thank heavens, so cats inside, birds gorging and plants drinking.
Annabel
18-06-06, 01:27 PM
starlings are well feisty but i wouldnt mind a few in my garden, all i ever get is three very fat collared doves who eat my cats' food, and the odd magpie that makes a right racket and tries to eat the guinea pig's food if his hutch is open. ;)
We are bird feeders too :D
Starlings are so noisy and aggressive, aren't they? They stopped our favourite blue tit and great tit families getting a look in.
We also have robins, sparrows, blackbirds, jays, doves, magpies and the dreaded pigeons :cry:
Occasionally we get long tailed tits, a beautiful woodpecker and greenfinches.
Right now by far our noisiest bird family are the magpies - they can screech for England those babies!
Down here we have a drought order in place and rain is very scarce, so I worry that people are forgetting to put water out for the birds - it is really dry, and very hot in my part of the country :blink:
We too have two collared doves that parade up and down the garden; two families of blackbirds (who fight each other off the food; as they do!); plenty of dunnocks and sparrows; three sets of goldfinches; and another ?finch family. There are two Wood pigeons who we have nicknamed "Stomper 1 & 2" as they appear to stomp up and down the grass and look like bully boys!
It is so lovely to sit on the decking in this weather watching them feed, they are becoming more and more friendly. Our Blackbirds will come into the garden really close and feed; we had lunch on the patio yesterday and "Blackie" as we call it was waiting for us to throw him something :hihi:
Last year we had a male blackbird that had white markings on his head (we called him Scraggy), and this year one of the baby female blackbirds has the same markings so must be one of his offspring!
I love birds where we used to live there were hardly any birds that would venture into our garden because of cats both side of us who used to creep into our garden; but where we are now they are in abundance and it is pure joy to watch their antics of bathing and eating (apart from the starlings of course!) and hear them. We do not have a drought order here but I have three bird baths and a fountain for them to bathe and drink from; a baby starling yesterday got so wet it could not fly and took it about 15 minutes flapping it's wing to dry them; his feathers were soaked :hihi: He eventually flew off but I bet he'll be more careful next time!
It is strange, I never lost a bird to a cat, even though I feed the strays in an opposite corner of the garden. The cats have a path to the food, shelter and water set out for them and they share it with the crows and magpies, but they avoid the bird feeding stations. I think I worked hard to get it that way but I set up a hose and if I saw a cat encroaching I turned on the spray. They learned and it is the same cats that visit each day so it turned out fine.
My old ginger moggie is a birdwatcher and the concept of catching anything except a bowl of pilchards is alien to him. My little girl cat is too clumsy to catch birds and she sits under the feeders chittering in frustration while the birds just feed above her. The birds learned fast that she was inept.
I forgot the blackbirds! He has all but stopped singing now and I think the bits of blackbird song I do hear are starling mimicry now. The whole reason I started feeding the birds was because of the blackbirds - I cannot resist the Spring song. He is very handsome and very shy.
I tend to make my visitors shy. We are too built up here, though there is farmland near. However I do not trust the children, who used to chuck stones and shoot bb pellets at the birds. We managed to stop that but I prefer the birds to be nervous. It will help in the end when I move I think, because they will move on more easily.
I wish I had a country home where neighbours did not feel concerned about birdy poop on their hanging washing!
I cannot help thinking we should be seeing ladybirds around about now? There are none and my rose bushes were aphid ridden!
Annabel
18-06-06, 03:25 PM
i had an abundance of ladybirds in early may, and they did a grand job of eating all the greenfly on my roses :)
Ladybirds - we too had a lot around end of April and into May, but haven't seen anys since. The were all over our decking area having a wonder around!
My honesuckle is in full bloom and some of it is covered with some sort of fly.......
phantos02
18-06-06, 10:42 PM
We have seagulls nesting in our chimney :sad:
At the moment there are two babies in there, they are still at the grey fluffy stage where they just have fuzzy stubs instead of wings. I was watching them parading up and down on top of the rood the other day. I am dreading that one of them falls into the garden :unsure: . Not because I'm worried for the birds but because if that happens I won't be able to go into the garden for weeks as the mother will dive-bomb my head!!