A bird obsession looming?

Over the years I have seen so many impressive photos of birds on people’s gardening blogs, and I would really like to take some myself - would make a nice change from all the flower photos I usually take in my garden. I have realised that in order to take successful bird photos you also need to feed them, as by feeding the birds you have a way of getting the birds come to you.

So that’s why I last Christmas bought a feeding system for small birds, and a large bag of bird seeds. I put the feed pole in the middle of my garden, close to the big camellia and several obelisks, so the birds would have something to both hide in and perch on before hopping onto the feeder. In any case, my garden is only 4.7m wide so it’s not exactly a long stretch from one fence to the other. The feeder stood there, full of seeds for a whole 6 weeks without being touched. No birds seemed remotely interested in it at all. It snowed, it rained, it was nice warm weather, it was cold, it was warm again – no bird arrived to show any interest and the bird feeder was just as full as when I filled it. (Click to see large photos.)

It’s not as if I don’t have any birds around me, the most obvious ones are the woodpigeons in resident, on my roof. I have had wood pigeons on my roof non-stop since I moved in here more than 11 years ago, not sure if the same ones come and stay for more than 1 season, but that half chimney pipe must be very popular among the local pigeon population, as it is always occupied. The current family consist of 2 parents and 2 chicks, the chicks were already flying in early February, which is quite early. It is a bit of a spectacle every year when the parents teach the chicks to fly, and they take off on the roof and fly to the tall conifer in my garden, encouraging the chicks to follow. Sometimes the chicks don’t manage the stretch to the tree and have to land down in my garden, and the parents will perch on my fences, make a lot of noise and try to persuade the chicks to continue their journey off to safety. Not always easy, as take-off from my garden is much more difficult than from a tree or a roof. It is hilarious to watch them at times!

UPDATE: As Sue has pointed out for me in her comment, what I thought was the woodpigeons two chicks is actually not at all their chicks but a different type of birds that have decided to live together with the woodpigeons! They are collared doves, which are smaller than woodpigeons. I did think it was unusual to see chicks as early in the year as now. Incidentally, after reading more about woodpigeons and collared doves, I now know that the woodpigeons babies are not called chicks but squabs! Amazing what you can find via Google :-)

But back to feeding the birds. Since no one seemed interested in the feeding pole in the location I had it, I moved it to next to the tall conifer. I was hoping that the birds would feel more secure with the feeder right under the canopy. I know I have some sparrows in my garden, I have seen them and heard them, so I hoped they would come and eat from the feeder. I also hung up some suet balls as I read that sparrows would be more interested in suet balls in the winter than normal mixed seeds. I bought a dedicated suet ball cage and hung it in the tree where I have a passion flower, next to the tall conifer. Finally I bought some sunflower seeds, but didn’t have a feeder for those so I just used a take-away tray for the sunflower seeds. Now the sparrows could come and eat! But only the wood pigeons took the invitation.

Here is the tall conifer in my garden, it is so tall that I struggle to take pictures of it so normally you only see the trunk of the tree not the canopy. I have pruned away most of the branches, or else it would have taken a quarter of the garden space – that’s why it looks like a palm tree and not like the cedar tree it actually is.

The pigeons clearly enjoy the seed mix, here they are two chicks and one parent. I’m sorry the photos aren’t any better than this, I don’t have a proper zoom lens so this is as good as I can get it with my camera. I have considered getting a 55-250mm lens for my camera, and I have found a place where they sell them second hand, but even second hand they are around £100. That’s a lot of money for a lens I don’t really need for anything else than when I have to be far away, like taking pictures of birds. You see, I have tried taking pictures of them when I am out in the garden, but they just fly away as soon as I try to approach them. I don’t really have that problem with my plants and flowers!

So these pictures of the birds are taken indoors, through my kitchen window, which is not ideal, and which makes me quite far away from the feeders, around 10-12 meters away. I could certainly need a better lens, but I am just not sure how often I would sit in my window watching out for the right moment where a bird would fly in so I could take a picture. Would I do it often enough to justify buying a lens for £100? Not sure yet, certainly not as long as I haven’t seen much birds at all yet, apart from the pigeons that live on my roof. I have seen a few sparrows, that’s true, and I have seen one bird that looks like a sparrow on steroids. Not sure what kind of bird it is, I am hopeless with bird names, it looks like a big sparrow with longer, bigger legs - a sparrow on steroids. I have also seen a couple of crows and seagulls, but only flying over the roofs here, not in my garden That’s it really.

I bought a birdbath, thought it might attract some smaller birds to come regularly, and it has been used, I can see the water has been splashed around a couple of times on days when it has not been raining. And one day I found a feather in the water. Yes, the birdbath has definitely been visited, but by whom? Could be just the wood pigeons again, I don’t really know, I haven’t caught any birds drinking or splashing around in it yet so I have no idea. If nothing else I think the birdbath looks decorative in the garden, it’s the only kind of water feature I have so if the birds won’t use it I can certainly regard at it as an ornament in the garden!

The expensive fat balls with bird seeds incorporated have not been very popular in my garden. As you can see something has had a nibble on them, but that’s hardly noticeable. Definitely not a hit, and I have another 12 balls in my kitchen, waiting to be eaten. There was no instruction with the fat balls so I don’t know how long they will last, I assume it is like with lard, that they will go off eventually. At the moment I just keep them in a cupboard with the bird seeds, but perhaps I should keep them in the fridge? If anyone can offer some advice on storing the fat balls I would appreciate it.

The sunflower seeds proved a lot more popular in my garden, they got eaten quite quickly every time I filled up that take-away tray so I decided to replace the tray with something a bit more substantial. This little bird house has a drawer for seeds and is easy to fill up when necessary. I have actually seen a few sparrows flying in and getting some seeds in the bird house a few times, they don’t perch on the drawer, they just kind of fly past it and nip one seed out and then quickly turn around and fly off. Not sure why they don’t sit down for a longer meal, I should think the edge of the drawer would be a perfect perching place – but what do I know, I’m not exactly a sparrow! But the sparrows have been few and far between, I have wondered if the pigeons have helped themselves to the sunflower seeds too, since the seeds got eaten so quickly every time I filled up the drawer.

But hey, here’s the culprit! Sorry this picture isn’t very good, but can you see something inside the bird house? That’s definitely not a sparrow, and certainly not a wood pigeon! (Click to emlarge.)

Here he goes, scurrying down after a feast on my sunflower seeds meant for the sparrows!!

So there you have it, my garden should now be an inviting place for different kinds of birds, but at the moment I am feeding four woodpigeons and one, maybe several squirrels. Not exactly what I was planning to do! I don’t think there is any big risk of a bird obsession just yet...Today we have had a ferocious weather, with stormy, ice cold winds and snow - spring is not exactly on the agenda, but that can change completely in a week or two. Hopefully when spring arrives properly, some more birds will come to my garden too. I am not sure if the woodpigeons are keeping the smaller birds away, but when it comes to my cat I’m quite relaxed. The cat and I sat on my bench here the other day, with three of the pigeons sitting on the feeding pole eating. The pigeons didn’t mind me and the cat and the cat couldn’t care less about the pigeons eating at the other end of the garden – he was just relaxing on my lap. I think my cat is too old to be chasing the birds, he knows he can’t get them. When it comes to the squirrel though he might have a go, a rather half-hearted one, which the squirrel will win every time.

The snow didn’t settle today, it was just a lot of flurries in the air and not much on the ground. Hopefully this will be it, but we might get another round of snow next week so that lovely warm spring I had on order hasn’t been delivered yet! I hope you have better gardening weather were you are, until next time, take care.