Full house

[Snowgoose-1]

Poor old pidgeons. Paying the price for being successful. Very woke.

Seriously, lack of garden birds is such a shame. Very rarely do I see small birds anymore.

 

[johnalison]

Poor old pidgeons. Paying the price for being successful. Very woke.

Seriously, lack of garden birds is such a shame. Very rarely do I see small birds anymore.

I am not in touch with the true statistics, but there was a variety here when we moved in 25 years ago. In the first five years or so I saw
Spotted flycatcher
Redwing
Goldfinches
Blackcap
Bullfinch
Sparrowhawk
and probably others I have forgotten, but in the last ten years little but the odd dunnock, blue tit or blackbird. It does look as if the garden populations have crashed.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

At the moment we have very few birds of any description and even the squirrels seem to have taken refuge somewhere else as for the last two days a Goshawk has taken up residence, I will try to get a photograph but he spends most of his time in the stand of bare oaks about 100M from the house.
We have a number of raptors in the area, Buzzards, Kites, Sparrowhawks and Goshawks all of which make periodic appearances. A year ago a Sparrowhawk took down a pigeon in the air no more than 20M from the house then dragged it under cover of the bamboo before shielding it and ripping it apart.
Most of the time we have a large variety of small birds Finches, Robbins and LBJs ( I am no ornithologist )
As for johnalinsons .177 25 to 30M is about its limit and a head shot is required, the problem is ballistics. There is significant drop and lateral movement of the pallet at those ranges. In the UK I used to use a .22 on pigeon in the garden and have hit one in the head at about 40M rifle equipped with a telescopic sight on a windless day but still a lucky shot at that range that I really shouldn't have taken.

 

[Egret]

Back to the topic we seem to have had much less variety of garden birds since a hard winter a few years ago. We hear owls and they happily sit and eat on our roof but never see them. Resident rooks have moved away but come back when there is shooting. At the boat, more wading birds, turnstones. egrets, a couple of avocets, more big gulls, than in the past but not many black headed gulls now. Herring gulls are relatively new residents, good mothers and fathers but a bit aggressive, and if they decide to build a nest on your boat will be there all summer

 

[johnalison]

As for johnalinsons .177 25 to 30M is about its limit and a head shot is required, the problem is ballistics. There is significant drop and lateral movement of the pallet at those ranges. In the UK I used to use a .22 on pigeon in the garden and have hit one in the head at about 40M rifle equipped with a telescopic sight on a windless day but still a lucky shot at that range that I really shouldn't have taken.

I wouldn't recommend using a .177 on any living thing in anger, but my reference was to a moment of teenage folly that I immediately regretted. There was a chap at the club who maintained that a .177 would be more effective against a bird than a .22 as the smaller pellet would get through the plumage easier, though I don't think many of us believed him. I wouldn't expect my air rifle to be effective against anything much over more than about five yards and would probably happily bounce off a small child at your 30 metres, something I should perhaps try some time when the local kids annoy me. (Note to GCHQ, this was not meant seriously).

 

[Daydream believer]

I wouldn't recommend using a .177 on any living thing in anger, but my reference was to a moment of teenage folly that I immediately regretted. There was a chap at the club who maintained that a .177 would be more effective against a bird than a .22 as the smaller pellet would get through the plumage easier, though I don't think many of us believed him. I wouldn't expect my air rifle to be effective against anything much over more than about five yards and would probably happily bounce off a small child at your 30 metres, something I should perhaps try some time when the local kids annoy me. (Note to GCHQ, this was not meant seriously).

Many years ago I killed a pigeon at 30 yds & a rabbit at 20 yards in my fathers orchard with my airgun. Both hit on the head. It has a longer barrel than most, which adds to pellet flight. It will kill a rat at 25 yds with ease.
On my round UK trip I met a SH Norwegian sailor who was being hassled by some yobs. ( about 6 or 7 throwing stones on his boat because I may have been it was berthed where they usually fished) It was one of the NI harbours. He quickly sorted them though, because he had a catapault & hit 2 or 3 of them on the legs. The screams could be heard across the harbour. The range of a catapault is fairly good & he had them running down the quay for quite a distance. They did not come back.

 

[M Hill]

A mate of mine has a duck punt and a very big gun.........

Amazing almost medieval contraptions, my first dose of small boating as a child / teenager was in punts with guns in the Back Waters around the Oakley Creaks and the progressed me into reading Arthur Ransom.

 

[DanTribe]

I was at a public meeting when they were proposing the Wallasea Wetlands on The Crouuch / Roach.
I asked how long it would be befored we could start harvesting the birds. I fancied a bit of widgeon pie.
Not much sense of humour some people!

 

[GEM43]

Seriously, lack of garden birds is such a shame. Very rarely do I see small birds anymore.

Alas, same here. Used to see lots then our new neighbour arrived with three cats. No birds now.

 

[GEM43]

My early years were very rural, game shooting very much part of life. I went to work in London. Once I asked the city boy Head of Office if he did any pheasant shooting. His response has stuck with me “I don’t shoot at anything unless it can shoot back at me”. Alien though that was to the country boy I rather liked it.

 

[johnalison]

My early years were very rural, game shooting very much part of life. I went to work in London. Once I asked the city boy Head of Office if he did any pheasant shooting. His response has stuck with me “I don’t shoot at anything unless it can shoot back at me”. Alien though that was to the country boy I rather liked it.

I don’t have a philosophical objection to game shooting, though some of the driven-game excesses do appear distasteful. I think I can only justify it to myself if it is for the pot, which I gather is not the case today in too many instances. For conservation reasons, it looks as if duck or goose shooting is hard to excuse, and probably those other birds such as woodcock or snipe that we don’t often see. From what I gather, in the Middle Ages and earlier it was common for the sky to be black with flocks of fowl, just as it was the case with the Passenger Pigeon. I imagine that it is mainly habitat loss that has deprived us of these spectacles in the UK rather than sport, but there are few enough birds as it is without shooters making things worse. It is easy to get the impression that all is well from TV films and the occasional large flock, but it is the real-life statistics that actually matter.

 

[GEM43]

I don’t have a philosophical objection to game shooting, though some of the driven-game excesses do appear distasteful. I think I can only justify it to myself if it is for the pot, which I gather is not the case today in too many instances. For conservation reasons, it looks as if duck or goose shooting is hard to excuse, and probably those other birds such as woodcock or snipe that we don’t often see. From what I gather, in the Middle Ages and earlier it was common for the sky to be black with flocks of fowl, just as it was the case with the Passenger Pigeon. I imagine that it is mainly habitat loss that has deprived us of these spectacles in the UK rather than sport, but there are few enough birds as it is without shooters making things worse. It is easy to get the impression that all is well from TV films and the occasional large flock, but it is the real-life statistics that actually matter.

Agreed. I’ve an acquaintance who is keen on game (pheasant) shooting. He talks of 300 bird days as commonplace. I have a difficulty with that, when I was on the farm a very good day’s sport was 100 birds, eight guns, six drives. That’s plenty I reckon.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Alas, same here. Used to see lots then our new neighbour arrived with three cats. No birds now.

I wonder if the mild winters have something to do with it. Perhaps not having to look for food in suburbia when times are tough

The crows, magpies and gulls are hard nuts in my garden. When cats turn up they sit on the fence not far away and start squawking.

 

[Daydream believer]

It is not just cats. Crows & magpies do kill a lot of birds. I was on holiday in Killarney & commented to a local about the lack of birds, other than crows. He said that the town was full of Sparrows, as that was the only place they could survive due to the predatory birds. All the song birds had been killed off.
It is noticeable in our area how the pigeons (it is normally full of the b..y things) disappear for a couple of weeks when the Falcon takes up temporary residence.

 

[WoodyP]

Trying to get back on track, l had a wonderful day in North Norfolk with a colleague and friend who was a keen birder. Our aim was to see and record 100 British birds in a day. We managed 96 . His eye for a bird was an eye opener. I would not have spotted half of them without him.
Amazingly one of our misses was a carrion crow. I suspect human intervention in our search area, another was lesser spotted woodpecker. We have a good number here now, but I had never seen one before. A little auk was one l have never seen since.

 

[WoodyP]

Alas, same here. Used to see lots then our new neighbour arrived with three cats. No birds now.

We have 4 cats, and feed them although they live in the yard and barns. No shortage of birds here, although the murderous beggars have their share.

 

[johnalison]

Trying to get back on track, l had a wonderful day in North Norfolk with a colleague and friend who was a keen birder. Our aim was to see and record 100 British birds in a day. We managed 96 . His eye for a bird was an eye opener. I would not have spotted half of them without him.
Amazingly one of our misses was a carrion crow. I suspect human intervention in our search area, another was lesser spotted woodpecker. We have a good number here now, but I had never seen one before. A little auk was one l have never seen since.

Well done. A club member runs a 2-hr bird walk every February and we usually score around sixty species, with any species recorded if it is seen by the leader or two people. It is certainly true that an experienced watcher can be an excellent way to see different types, and often once a species enters one’s repertoire it becomes much easier to spot one’s own examples. A little auk sounds brilliant. Are you sure it wasn’t a puffin that shrank in the wash?

 

[WoodyP]

Well done. A club member runs a 2-hr bird walk every February and we usually score around sixty species, with any species recorded if it is seen by the leader or two people. It is certainly true that an experienced watcher can be an excellent way to see different types, and often once a species enters one’s repertoire it becomes much easier to spot one’s own examples. A little auk sounds brilliant. Are you sure it wasn’t a puffin that shrank in the wash?

Definitely a little auk, blown in by gales to some freshwater pools near Holkham beach, at the end of Lady Anne's Drive.
I did actually tick a puffin at Eye brook reservoir. It died shortly after.

 

[Puffin10032]

It is not just cats. Crows & magpies do kill a lot of birds. I was on holiday in Killarney & commented to a local about the lack of birds, other than crows. He said that the town was full of Sparrows, as that was the only place they could survive due to the predatory birds. All the song birds had been killed off.
It is noticeable in our area how the pigeons (it is normally full of the b..y things) disappear for a couple of weeks when the Falcon takes up temporary residence.

There's clearly some A grade morons in Killarney. House Sparrows are only found in close association with human occupation. Where I usually go birding there's a farm complex and a house opposite which hosts a population of House Sparrows. In all my years of birding there I've never known the Sparrows venture more than 100 yards or so from the buildings. Lack of birds is always caused by anthropogenic effects but some will find it very convenient to lie and claim it's all the fault of corvids. The effect of cats on the bird population is massively over-stated and has no basis in science.

 

[GEM43]

. The effect of cats on the bird population is massively over-stated and has no basis in science.

I can only speak as I find.