Where have all the birds gone??

mjb123

mjb123

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Something odd seems to of happened! My garden birds seem to of disappeared, normally have goldfinches green finches blue tits the odd chaffinch but in the last 2-3 days there's been nothing!
Is there a reason for this or is it quite normal!!
Even the big fat pigeons are absent!
 
I've noticed this. I topped up the feeder on Saturday and other than the meal worms, nothings been touched much. Even the fat balls which normally go quite fast (the starlings love them) only have a few small marks.
 
Mine do this quite often. I'll have a glut of birdies for a while and then suddenly nothing for days without my changing anything. I have no idea why unless we have a new predator in the area, sparrowhawk perhaps?
 
Even the platoons of parakeets have disappeared, the odd one or two only for the past week.
Still get a lot of green finches though and a few tits of various kinds but the numbers of all birds are certainly down.
One possibility may be the slightly higher temperatures we've had for the past 10 days or so and that birds have other available food sources other than garden feeders.

Interesting short piece on LBC just now by someone from the Woodland Trust talking about early frog spawning and insect activity.
 
Looked out at the feeder earlier and there were 5-6 great tits and 3 starlings waiting their turn. Maybe it's weather related as it's not as cold today?
 
I know I lost a lot of my birds last winter and whilst they never 'vanished' they did seem to be thin on the ground from time to time.

I discovered that the person that lives nearby had also started feeding them. A feeding war ensued LOL and after a while they were back. Seems they don't feed them anymore so they're here in numbers this year.
 
In winter you often get mixed flocks of birds traveling around looking for food. If thay find a good source thay will stay around untill it runs out. Then gthay will go looking for another source. And so on. These can be quite big flocks and may depleat an area for a short time.
 
ABWildlifePhoto said:
One other possible explanation is the appearence of a Sparrowhawk or other similar predator. Birds can often leave an area for a week or so after a sparrowhawk even simply flies through.

Alex
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Well that could have some real truth, *** a couple of weeks ago a sparrow hawk tried to grab a pigeon! Completely out the blue!! Never seen 1 before!!
 
iancandler said:
In my case I know were they've gone.. in the damn cats round here..
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Yes I have a basket of small missiles to sling at any cat I see! Had 1 that kept sitting on the next door neighbours bird box! I soon saw that off!!!
I think bells on collars should be compulsory!!
 
mjb123 said:
Yes I have a basket of small missiles to sling at any cat I see! Had 1 that kept sitting on the next door neighbours bird box! I soon saw that off!!!
I think bells on collars should be compulsory!!
Click to expand...


I completely agree... ps.. stale urine in a powesoaker works extremely well :D
 
For no reason that I can comprehend the birds have all reappeared this morning. I havn't seen a Goldfinch in months but this morning I've seen 4, same with chaffinches and greenfinches, none for months and today several. On the very same morning a robin and a few tits have also moved in.

Why all on the same morning? The food menu hasn't changed, no gardening had been done, the neighbours cat still exists (sadly) but suddenly today we're in favour again. Go figure!
 
I've never worked out why bird numbers vary.

Short term in our garden there is very little variation, it is much greater over the longer term.

Until about three years ago we were delighted to see the few goldfinches that turned up for a few weeks in the winter. One winter they arrived and never went away and the numbers increased. Now they are the commonest bird in the garden.

Dave
 
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