h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I shall keep a look out for any birdies in my garden, but I suspect having a cat might keep them at a distance!

Bea, my garden has at least three visiting cats, and at one time, till I got a Catwatch gizmo we had as many as fourteen using our garden as a thoroughfare from suburbia to the fields. They would of course grab a free meal in passing whenever some poor unsuspecting birdie was available.

Websailor

Plenty to chew over (and peck at) in this issue's wacky column Websailor. Good one!

I've got one of those cat deterrent gizmos too. They work quite well. My brother has a couple of cats but he feeds the birds using the mesh peanut feeders, well out of their reach. All they can do is watch with expressions of hungry longing

Have you had a seed delivery recently? I had one last week and the prices have all shot up again! It used to be a few pence here and there, but now they seem to be almost doubling at a stroke. Even the raisins (that I get from the supermarket because they cost about 1/3 of the price of the birdfood suppliers) have more than doubled. I'm getting value sultanas instead, at £1.30 per kilo.

Haven't seen any squirrels for a few weeks. Several of my neighbours shoot them. The man next door is very protective of his birds. He has quite a few trees and spends a lot of time watching the birds, encouraging them to nest etc. Two or three years ago, when the squirrel population exploded, the little rascals tore every nest in his garden to pieces. He arrived just in time to catch one of them demolishing the last one, eggs and all. It upset him. Since then, he gets a bit shirty if he thinks my bird-feeding might be encouraging grey squirrels to forage up our end of the village. So I use the squirrel proof feeders and chase them off if I see them (for their own good of course). Ah well.

Tib,

The cat gizmo works for some cats, but not others. Ginger is defiant and ignores it, others stare at it suspiciously, and others run like . Apparently white cats are usually deaf so it doesn't wok for them, but it has certainly drastically reduced the number of cats using our garden.

The bird food from my supplier has gone up in price dramatically, but I have tried cheaper food and the birds leave a lot so it is wasted. I am just very sparing with it and I ration them however much they try to beg and plead Apparently peanuts in particular have gone up hugely because the crop in China has been very poor, so the price has rocketed.

As for squirrels the mesh peanut feeders get wrecked in days, they just bite through the wire. I have ceramic ones with a hole punched tube which they cannot bite through. They cost a bit more, but the saving in peanuts pays for it.

For seeds I have a brilliant feeder which closes with the weight of the squirrel. It has them foiled completely but it really needs a baffle under it as the seed drops on the ground and can attracts the other rodents. We have five squirrels at the moment, very hungry ones, and they grab peanuts at my feet. I buy the raisins in bulk from the bird food supplier as both blackbirds and our badgers love them. I must admit I haven't checked against supermarket prices. I have to carry all my shopping on the bus so the more I can get delivered the better!

Thanks for reading my article. I hope it might give a few people some ideas. Bird watching is such a relaxing, interesting, and rewarding pastime.



Websailor