that means they are setting up winter territories already. did you know that males and females sing at this time of year?
Mark
heard a robin singing today
No Mark i did not, looking forward to seeing my single robin. Been watching the swallows leaving us on their voyage to Africa, only seen today a few stragglers, and it will be the martins next for leaving. Getting everything cleaned for them been doing their boxes etc, got loads of sunflowers so they will have loads to eat in the winter. Been to the farm for my well rotted manure and there are thousands of worms so i suppose they will think they are eating at the Ritz. Sheila
Do you still go to the Canal, Sheila? I'll have to start thinking about my mallards at the duck-pond. Can't have them getting hungry!!!
just saw my first robin today, i just got a net of monkey nuts for the birds and hung it from my cherry tree and one of the first to come was a sweet little robin. cats found him quite entertaining too from the bedroom window!
I hope they stay there-the eat my cherries, my berries and anything they can get into!!! Yes they can sing-but they sure do need to eat alot of my fruit to keep up their strength. ;]
dori
I think our robins have left. haven't seen any for a while. Mainly sparrows and a lot of mourning doves sitting on telephone wires. We didn't even get the big black crows this year, which is fine as they drive the dog crazy!
notmartha & djm, your Robin isnt a Robin! it was named so by early european settlers because it looked similar to our Robin. yours actually belongs to the Thrush - turdus - family.
Mark
I spent a lot of the last year watching the birds from my sunlounge, I have a divider with about 6 feeders along it, I,ve seen lots of birds, (I inherited my dad,s binocs and bird-watching book ) it,s been good fun watching them. I saw a coal tit yesterday for the first time,they were with the blue-tits. In the summer my flock of sparrows were attacked right in front of my nose by a sparrow-hawk,luckily they all dived into the shrubbery and hid,my garden was silent for at least 5 mins, before anything appeared again, even the baby birds on the roof kept silent, I had visions of Mum up there with her wing over their mouths.LOL
lol sue, thats a funny image!
Our wildlife gardening lecturer was telling us about the sparrowhawks and the reasons why there seems to be so many now.. at the start of the century gamekeepers used to control the population, but when the wars broke out these men were called up and sadly most of them never came back. the sparrowhawk numbers grew as a result until the 50s and 60s when crop spraying started. the sparrowhawks ate the birds that ate the sprayed grain and the build up of toxins in their bodies killed vast numbers of them. the numbers are increasing now as a result of no spraying and an absence of gamekeepers. they wont affect the bird populations apparently, but thats why people around 40 or 50 think there are so many around now - there aren't, there were just very few when they were young.
i personally havn't seen any sparrowhawks attack birds in my garden, but probably would be shocked to see it, but they are all part of the food chain, and short of turning vegetarian i am doing just the same eating lambs and chickens.
lil