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So with the cold snap upon us and much snow falling here in the Highlands, I went full auto with the bird feed this morning and put out extra fat balls, crushed a few for the less gymnastic and generally topped up the feeders. Withing minutes the usual suspects are out having a well needed feed. And then the Blackbird turned up. And another one. Within seconds a happy throng of feeding bird's was scattered to the wind as the Blackbird's piled in to each other, scattering food everywhere and scaring everything on two legs.
They are a menace to themselves!
We have a pair of blackbirds as regular visitors. They seem pretty calm. "Our" robin also doesn't mind them and will happily share the garden/food.
The bloody crows though - they can just do one!!!
Don't worry the Fieldfares will be along shortly to show them who's boss.
Blackbirds are all show.
😃 👍
I do like our resident crows although they worked out how to pull up the coconut shell full of fat and seed. Took them about an hour to pull up the string, hold the excess and then pull up the next bit until the shell was at their level. Incredible to watch!
Currently they are enjoying the dead mice from the mousetraps. Circle of life and all that.
I don't mind the crows,but I want all magpies jailed,barstewards.
No magpies this far north.
Corvid 19 sent them packing
We had a blackbird that fledged last year and just used to sit in the flowerbeds looking confused, like he left the nest early or banged his head on the window. You could walk right up to him before he flew off, and he had a droopy left wing and didn't fly particularly well. He got named Dippy.
He's all grown up now and still comes occasionally to eat sultanas. He's got a white marking on his previously dodgy wing so we know it's him. And he only eats sultanas out of all the food options.
Sounds more like starling behaviour? Blackbirds tend not to be very mobby.
We've got a nice wee ecosystem now, the starlings and the crows come and make a racket and scatter everything around, then once they're there the sparrows and fat pigeons know it's safe so they come in, then the coaltits come and then the robin comes and bobs around carefully eating only the finest of dropped seeds and fatty bits. And they're all looking out for the cats.
But I get shunned by the blackbirds, they go and eat next door for some reason. Maybe it's my B&M Bargains birdfood.
The blackbirds in these parts tend to flock together in winter unlike their southern cousins, not unusual to see 8 to 12 in the garden at once waiting their turn on the bird feeders. It’s the sparrowhawks and buzzards that tend to cause chaos here. There are hooded crows and ravens in the woods nearby but they don’t come into the garden.
Jackdaws are the bastards around here. Eat everything and make a racket.
Northwind
Sounds more like starling behaviour? Blackbirds tend not to be very mobby.
That was my first thought. The only time I see more than a couple of blackbirds together is breeding season or well after they have done the act and are trying to teach junior how to forage.
Starlings on the other hand are like the Mackerel of the bird world, turn up mob handed and flash their oily colour around.
I don’t mind the crows,but I want all magpies jailed,barstewards.
Magpies are super intelligent. I sometimes put raw eggs out for the local ones, they'll sit there and watch as I wedge it into a nook in the dry stone wall then come down for their dinner.
Jackdaws are the bastards around here. Eat everything and make a racket.
They are quite rowdy. But the starlings and spuggies are noisier
It's the pigeons and magpies that tend to mob handed kick the little birds off ours. Arseholes the lot of them.
I was chuffed today to see a goldfinch back. New neighbours behind us 3 years ago cut down as much as they could in thier garden - and got rid of the long tailed tits' perch and the goldfinch flock that was here when we moved in.
The blackbirds in these parts tend to flock together in winter unlike their southern cousin
They do often migrate though with a bunch coming over from Scandinavia and the rest shuffling further southwest.
The blackbirds in these parts tend to flock together in winter
Rough neighbourhood is it?
I like blackbirds. Moron of the bird kingdom you ask? May I introduce the wood pigeon.
COO COO COO-COO... AH COO COO COO-COO... AH COO COO COO-COO...
ALL. DAY. LONG. Absolute whopper with wings.
The blackbirds in these parts tend to flock together in winter
The collective noun for a group of blackbirds is a cloud or grind.
You lot are lucky. all I get is herring gulls stomping around
Absolute whopper with wings
Fair
Magpies around here are savage. They do look cool though so get a pass. They're like the SS of the bird world. Assholes, but stylish.
They’re like the SS of the bird world. Assholes, but stylish.
Id love to see a magpie riding single speed, I really would
Id love to see a magpie riding single speed, I really would
😁
You've never been to East London?
The collective noun for a group of blackbirds is a cloud or grind
Apparently the collective for a group of Bullfinch is a 'bellowing'😎
I learned this after seeing six of them together on one of my local walks, always a pleasure to spot.
“Our” robin also doesn’t mind them and will happily share the garden/food.
"Ours" gets chased by either the blackbirds, or more normally the USAF! Also known as the starlings. Crows (ish) oversee everything, then the magpies try to take over, but the food tends to not be accessible for them. The day the 'raptor' no idea what, took out another flying bird mid-flight, clattering into the patio door was something else though 😱 the little birds all get chased away by the starlings though.
Both quintessential AND morons. 🙂
The blackbird's what?
(27 posts and no one complained yet about the apostrophe? Disgraceful)
@matt_outandabout
The Lost Words is such a beautiful book,and those paintings of Jackie Morris are lovely.
👍
Pair of blackbirds in our garden - they never use the feeders, but do clear up what falls on the ground. The jackdaws and magpies regularly defeat my attempts to deter them from the feeders for the smaller birds!
What's that word for attaching human traits to wild creatures?
Anthropomorphism
This thread has reminded me to top the feeders up 🙂
We just moved into our place and the previous owners left all the apples on the tree. I wondered why until I looked out of the window to see a pair of blackbirds having an apple each. Continued for a couple of weeks!
We've had a couple of starling mobbings here but our robin and sparrows seem to have held their own.
Ooooo I actually know the answer to this one.
Dawn Sarf we mostly have resident blackbirds. They’ve lived here a long time and they like their patch. They live on their own and like to keep it that way, unless it’s spring time and they want to get horny.
Come Winter, well that’s when all the scandis arrive. This bunch of hooligans have eaten all the berries in Scandinavia and flock together to migrate southward, many arriving in Scotland. They’re still blackbirds, but you’ll see very different behaviour for such a flock in Scotland than a resident individual in southern England.
Similar with robins. They’re both “semi-migrant”. Which means we have some residents (depending on where you are) and then some that just turn up and try and cash in on the berries when the times right.
I’m all for sharing all the berries when the time is right, in case my sarcasm hasn’t come across btw 🙂
My effing cat, who really should be too old for this, dragged a still alive blackbird into the house over the festive period. Then let it go.
Fluttering and general madness ensued.
It ended up perched in our Xmas tree, but a bit of beating and an open window resolved matters. I was quite impressed that it found the escape hatch without too much drama, tbh, so i'm inclined to credit them with some nous.
Male wood pigeons are avian sex pests, at least on the roof line outside my office window. Feathered incels!
Blackbirds round here can be a bit like the robins, they will fight over a patch. We once had 4 chasing each other around for a week before the winner was declared.
Smaller birds have been in shorter supply last 2-3 years whereas jackdaws and magpies have grown in number.
We have wood pigeons, collared doves and a good size group of starlings visiting, I like the starlings they are fun to watch unfortunately messy eaters and that brings the pigeons down from the roof tops to pick up the scraps.
Hoping we get the long tail tits back this year, always a nice sight. Held back a bit on bird food these last 18 months due to a bit of a rat problem in the area.
The day the ‘raptor’ no idea what, took out another flying bird mid-flight, clattering into the patio door was something else though 😱 the little birds all get chased away by the starlings though.
Out of the air in a garden it was a sparrow hawk. Ace things on the wing, their ability to fly through trees is something else.
All this chat about certain birds being morons... Not until the peacock is extinct can anything else in the UK take that crown.
Moron of the bird kingdom you ask? May I introduce the wood pigeon.
COO COO COO-COO… AH COO COO COO-COO… AH COO COO COO-COO…
ALL. DAY. LONG. Absolute whopper with wings.
Couldn’t agree more. They forget what they’re saying halfway through their last sentence and they even see in slow motion. Who knows how there’s so many of them!
Didn't know they migrated. I routinely get 4 or 5 in the garden when it's cold and they're after the feeder, but we have enough small patches of bushes and hedge that it supports a lot of small territories
The Lost Words is such a beautiful book,and those paintings of Jackie Morris are lovely.
Thanks to a couple of very close friends, who have been close friends with Jackie for years, I get all the books she’s worked on with Robert as presents, signed by both of them. They’ve also got originals of hers; she’s a superb artist.
As far as garden birds are concerned, I got very concerned and upset during the summer because virtually all the birds just vanished, except for the greedy pigeons, and I can get four of them at once. After a lot of experimenting I managed to arrange the bird feeders in my tree in such a way that the pigeons can’t empty them anymore. Makes me laugh watching them landing in my Acer, then shuffle along ever thinner branches, trying to reach any feeder with food in, stretching out and overbalancing repeatedly then giving up and pecking around on the patio after the scraps the others drop.
I was delighted when the starlings started to come back a couple of months ago, and now I’ve got twenty to thirty or so emptying the feeder full of mealworms, and the ones full of suet pellets. Sadly the sparrows have really diminished in numbers, there used to be a whole bunch of them, squabbling over the pellets, but it’s very quiet without them when the starlings aren’t kicking off. There’s a couple of crows around, and a pair of magpies keep coming around as well, which pleases me, they’re stunning birds. The goldfinches numbers have dropped off a lot as well, I used to get sometimes fifteen-twenty on my feeders with the sunflower hearts but now only about half a dozen or so.
There’s a regular pair of blackbirds come into the garden, they bring their offspring in every year as well, and they get on quite happily with the other birds, even the starlings. But they get very pissy with the Scandinavian interlopers if we get a long cold period - I watched them get almost hysterical because of the fieldfares and redwings on my front hedge after the berries.
I’ve been getting a pair of blackcaps as well, male and female, and they were around last year as well, so they’re not migrant summer visitors, they’re here right through the winter, which is a lovely thing.
What else; a couple of blue tits, there’s been coal and marsh tits around, and a pied wagtail along with a grey wagtail on a regular basis, but neither at the same time, oddly. Oh, and a robin, who seems quite friendly, I was clearing a load of hedge clippings and it has hopping around in the hedge, and happily coming close to me, so I put a dish down with mixed bird food and mealworms, and it was perfectly okay near my feet picking away at it.
Got to say, it’s lovely having the birds back in the garden.
Birds in our garden provide a huge amount of pleasure. Each species is fighting for their territory and food. They shove and push each other off the feeders. But, the feistiest are usually the teeny birds, coal tits and siskins often hold their own against a bullfinch or greenfinch.
Blackbirds are lovely creatures and along with the robin can be found in most gardens.
Blackbirds are lovely creatures and along with the robin can be found in most gardens.
https://allpoetry.com/The-Wrong-House
Well,
I know nothing about birds, you're speaking a foreign language. But on the back of this thread I've just nipped out at lunch and bought somewhat at random a fat block feeder and fat block with meal worms in, and a seed feeder and a bag of mixed seeds. They're out in the back yard now.
Hopefully it'll get some traction. Feed the birdies during a cold snap, plus it's TV for the cats.