Another pointless thread

If we're after cute animals I will have to put the photo I took of our visiting cat up. I've no idea what breed it is but I think it's a mix of Siamese and standard moggy, the result is friendly, inquisitive, very talkative and with an amazingly expressive tail which gets thwacked against anything in range. You pretty much get jumped on for attention with two paws planted on your leg and a loud mew!

It lives a couple of hundred metres or so away and seems to turn up here as part of a tour of nearby houses. Never wants food but purrs loud enough to rattle the windows if given some fuss.

So THIS AD was on the top of my browser on this page.

Would you trust it??

I post here if I need advice and criticism, I even get that without posting images on this thread (who said "sell the camera and buy a bucket?")

I've seriously considered this but decided to take just one more snap first

Regards

Have just had a flying visit to the fatball feeders from 1/2 dozen starlings. First birds I've seen in the garden for what seems like months. They seemed to have disappeared even before my neighbour chopped down his apple tree and the other neighbour had his apple tree pruned, or to look at it now, pruined.
Perhaps its time to make a hide by knocking a couple of bricks out of the wash-house wall and installing camera etc.

Regards

The birds have been absent here most of the summer.

We've just re-sited the feeders and filled them with fresh seed to see what happens.

There's three things that bring birds into my garden :-

1. I sow seeds in rows of nicely dug soil. That guarantees pidgeons will dig them up and the sparrows will use the rows for dust baths.

2. Stawberries start to ripen - Blackbirds are at them before I wake up

3. When my apple trees have almost ripe fruit. That's a cue for the starlings to peck every one - just in case there's a grub inside.


The bird feeder I had up to 2 years ago has been scrapped. The food usually rotted from lack of attention.

Having said all that I've had blackbirds; blue tits; and robins nesting and one of the robins follows me around the garden begging for grubs and will feed out of my hand -- Magic


Bernard

Don't forget to keep those bird feeders really clean - I assume you have heard of that nasty lurgy which is affecting garden birds?

The birds here seem to think it is spring again - we have a dawn chorus again. I guess they are as confused as the flowering rhododendron, magnolia and other spring shrubs which are having a new burst of flowers.

As I am within 1/4 mile of open country I think most of the birds find food out there. They tend to be more prevalent in the winter when the feeders are more used (I never feed in summer)

Bernard

I don't feed in the summer either - there is enough food around for them, even in deep suburbia. I always make sure there is clean water for them though.

Surrounded by countryside/farmland here but usually see a bird or two on the fence, this last few months only a few crows on the tv aerial on house opposite. Even the pidgeons which sit on our chimney and we hear cooing have been silent. Perhaps they will reappear in the winter

I have a pond from which the local blackbirds have learnt how to fish out tadpoles and a birdbath. Both of which are used as drinking water.

Birdbath is a 12" copper dish and has a cavity in the concrete base which takes a 15W car bulb which I connect to a spare car battery in severe winter weather to stop the water freezing.

Bernard

I forgot about the pigeons. How can I? - there's dozens of them.

They look similar but their calls are different, they fall into two camps :-

"my feeeet hurt - my feeeet hurt - my feeeet hurt"

"look at the ducks - look at the ducks- look at the ducks"

Bernard

Seems all "my" birds have "Gone for a Burton"

Regards

I've just read on another (non photographic) forum that a long time poster, and an internet friend, has died suddenly. He was found dead in his flat at just 46. No cause of death found yet.

At least his sister found her way onto the forum to tell us what happened. She hasn't been able to access his e-mail to tell people there though.

Very very sad.

Gwyn, I'm sorry to hear that. Very often one of the tradgedies of the internet is that people just disappear and we have no idea what has happened to them. This is even true of clubs and societies where no contact point can be found.