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In the garden 2022

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Not in the garden, but over it. We had some flocks of common cranes go over yesterday and today. About 100 to 150 at a time. We are on the edge of the migration route, other places west of us see them in greater numbers. They are coming up from Spain, and often have a rest in an area called The Brenne, which is a big natural area with lots of lakes in the Indre department well north of us. They carry on to Scandinavia and Russia. We know they are coming because they talk to each other nearly continuously with a distinctive call. It is fascinating to watch them change formation as they fly, almost as though it was choreographed.
Andrew.
 
Looking in the BBC wildlife magazine it seems that as many as 4,000 Barnacle Geese, that were wintering on the Solway Firth on the border between England and Scotland, have died from an ongoing and unprecedented outbreak of avian flu.

"The classic avian flu pattern is for the outbreak to peak in early winter, followed by a second wave later in the season that can be more deadly...Avian flu occurs naturally in the wild…However, this is the worst outbreak in wild birds that we've seen and we are increasingly worried about the impacts on wild birds both here and in other countries."
 
Well done Dave. Difficult to get close to these. We occasionally have one in our garden but never managed to get up close. Wonderful markings. Viv
 
I`ve had a rat(s) in the garden for a few days now. I bought a bait trap & placed 4 blocks of poison inside which i checked after a few days & none of the poison blocks had been touched. I emptied the poison blocks onto a concrete slab & i was amazed to see a rat come through a gap in the fence & take away a poison block & even more amazed to see it return & take away a block each time. In total i`ve put down 12 blocks & they have all been taken, so hopefully i have seen the last of the rat(s). Horrible creatures, not sure if they would kill a bird?
 
if you have rats there must be some food about ie bird food. clear that up first or you are wasting your time .i had rats come from the river so i dont feed the birds now and the rats have gone. rats are not daft they seem to know what is a trap.

Brodifacoum decreased blood clotting ability Directions for use
When using these Rat Poison Blocks outdoors or in sensitive areas they should always be securely housed within tamper-resistant bait boxes to make them inaccessible to children, pets and non-target wildlife.they are poison
 
mw0njm. said:
if you have rats there must be some food about ie bird food. clear that up first or you are wasting your time .i had rats come from the river so i dont feed the birds now and the rats have gone. rats are not daft they seem to know what is a trap.

Brodifacoum decreased blood clotting ability Directions for use
When using these Rat Poison Blocks outdoors or in sensitive areas they should always be securely housed within tamper-resistant bait boxes to make them inaccessible to children, pets and non-target wildlife.they are poison
Click to expand...
The bait box proved useless. I opened it to find a slug chomping away on the poison blocks. As for not feeding the birds i couldn`t do that, though i admit some birds ( Goldfinch ) scatter as many seed as they eat, & the pigeons will sit under the feeders catching the spillage. A garden without birds is a sad place.
 
Smudger said:
some birds ( Goldfinch ) scatter as many seed as they eat, & the pigeons will sit under the feeders catching the spillage.
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Same here, casting seed about all over. We have a window feeder, so a lot of feed ends up on the cill. Other birds just clean it up from there. We notice the finches have started getting very feisty with each other, wings spread, beaks open. Must be spring. Hawfinch is back on the window feeder as well, size rules. The other birds wait patiently in the bush until it decides to leave. (Its there now as I type this).
We are gradually reducing the number of feeding stations we have out. The birds need to start searching out grubs to feed the young that hopefully will be living in our cleaned out nest boxes soon.
We suddenly have a huge number of pigeons in the area. They rise in large flocks from nearby fields and merge into super flocks before heading off to who knows where. All back again the next day. Not noticed this in previous years.

Andrew.
 
Smudger said:
The bait box proved useless. I opened it to find a slug chomping away on the poison blocks. As for not feeding the birds i couldn`t do that, though i admit some birds ( Goldfinch ) scatter as many seed as they eat, & the pigeons will sit under the feeders catching the spillage. A garden without birds is a sad place.
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true i still get the birds;) the wag tails are back. finches,loads of sparrows, but i do have a lot of land.and natural food for them also a rookery close by with hundred of birds nesting. what a row.
 
Richard Dye said:
View attachment 168365
This is a not very friendly Hawk on our next door neighbors yard! This was from last fall but was there yesterday and I was not ready to take a pic. Apparently they like small pets and rodents. Not very nice at all!
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Nice photo. Richard, all creatures have to eat, be it a lion killing a okapi, a hawk killing a mouse.or a human killing a lamb. Either eat, or starve & die. Personally if i had to kill for food i would probably die !
 
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