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

I get really annoyed when the bread I put out for the cock blackbird who is feeding a family gets eaten up in seconds by a flock of hyperactive starlings.

Andrew thinks they're great. (This is like Ottox's favourite flower being the dandelion)
He at their fighting and squabbling.
He says they are his favourite birds, although I think he's winding me up, because he knows how much they annoy me.
Especially when *I* am the one cleaning the bird-poop off the windows.
You'd never see the blackbird doing that.
He sits on the fence and drops his package on the
bringing my garden another last year it was a bush

We don't seem to get many starlings in our garden. Finches: green, chaff and bull; blue, coal and great; woodpeckers: green and lesser spotted; pigeons and doves; blackbirds, robins, wrens, a sparrow or two and a thrush. Needless to say at least 5 magpies are usually hanging around and a sparrowhawk. Not bad for a suburban garden.

This winter I've been putting out sunflower seed hearts in a feeder and they have practically ignored the peanuts all winter, but the seeds I've had to refill every other day!

Cassie gets hours of amusement out of watching from the sitting room window. It is slowly dawning on her that sitting under the bird table doesn't work, as none of them fo near it when she is lurking

'Andrew and the starlings'

Great story title!

Caerwynn your garden sounds fab!
I've not seen a Robin {don't forget the robin.....} since I left my last house, probably because there are so many around here, but I do put grease balls in nets out - nailed to the bird table and also hanging from the garden fence.
These get eaten by the starlings.

I will get some sunflower seeds - I never put peanuts out because they feed their chicks on them and they choke.

Book title, one day I'll write a about my son....

There are loads of around here too. But there are also a lot of mature trees and at the moment the area has been little disturbed by development. It was built up in the 50s and the gardens are quite generous in size.

However that will change if the plan for 14 houses on neighbouring gardens goes ahead. Regardless of tree preservation orders, I reckon most of them on the gardens involved will disappear and the noise for a year or so of building work will frighten a lot of birds off.

The number of squirrels has dropped dramatically since another neighbour had their huge old oak tree ceriously cut back. It needed it, a lot of branches were just too heavy for the tree, but the squirrels have left home as a result.

Awwwwwwww

I bought a big bag of sunflower seeds today and have put plenty out on the back garden bird table.

I've found the number of squirrels and magpies has dropped quite astoundingly just recently - wonder if it's anything to do with the water bombs and the catapult?

We have more than enough squirrels... they raid every bird feeder, no matter what you do to make it impossible for them to get to it!

You don't want the squirrels to feed?

Water bombs and catapults?!?


Granny, act your age!

When I say there's lots of squirrels here, I mean there's *lots* and *LOTS* of them!

When Amy+ came back from the UK, she said that people over there seemed so thrilled to see even *one* family of squirrels take up residence in the neighborhood... You'd go wild over all the wildlife (no pun intended) in this area!

The squirrels around here chase each other all over the place: up a tree, across the roof, back and forth across the roof, down another tree, across the lawn, up another tree, etc. Essentially, it's male territorial fighting.

The people next door have spoiled the squirrels by hand feeding them peanuts from their sliding glass patio doors. When the neighbors went away for a few weeks, the squirrels showed up at *our* patio door - and they were begging! We gave in and gave them a few peanuts... which was a mistake, because then they started climbing the screens on the doors, which of course tore up the screens.

That's not the only wildlife we have around here - flocks of birds of all types and descriptions fly through here. Even a huge hawk made a nest in the big fir tree in the back yard last summer. We hear owls at night, so I know *they're* here too.

In the field behind the house there are foxes, which I've seen occasionally ... they feed on the rabbits (and probably the squirrels too), which are in such abundance that you can't put out a vegetable garden without them destroying it!

White tailed deer are in abundance around here, too. However there's not a thickly wooded area right in this neighborhood with a ready source of food (corn fields are their preference), so my deer sightings are generally limited to other places, such as my Mom's farm in Maryland, where we've often had deer walk right through the front lawn, although I've often seen them during hunting season in fields near the highway. All too often, you don't see them soon enough as they suddenly decide to bound across the road in front of your car as you're going about 60 mph! I know you're not allowed to hunt the deer in the UK - here, they're so overpopulated that hunting season is really necessary to reduce the populations so they don't destroy *all* the crops in the fields.

Mom's farm also has a pond, and several years ago, a Blue Heron took up residence there, dining on the frogs in the pond.

The US is still a bit "wilder" than the UK.

GB, didn't mean to hijack your journal...

Actuall the majority of people I know hate squirrels and are quite happy not to have any in the garden. Bit a couple are fun to watch, even if they do take all the peanuts out of the bird feeder. I would be even happier if our native red squirrels increased in numbers.

GB, did you say you were going to get some sunflower seed hearts? It took the a day or two to dscover them here, so don't be surprised if none show up immediately.

Lady Scott, your backyard sounds wonderful!
And I don't mind if you on in my journal, you paint a fabulous picture with your words....
I adore squirrels, maybe it's because I don't see any.
There was a family of foxes which roamed my street last year, but they've disappeared.
All the neighbours used to leave scraps out for them.

Caerwynn, I couldn't find any sunflower hearts, but I did find a 2kg bag of sunflower seed.

I filled the bird table, and went out.

When I came home, the table was bare.
I mean, there were a few seeds under the table, scattered here and there. But not many.

But I have no idea what or who gobbled them up, but I refilled the table and hope to catch the dawn chorus tomorrow morning.

I miss my cottage by the river with the herons and kingfishers. But I do see deer from time to time as I drive to work. We spotted 2 running across a field one morning last week.

We do have wild boar around in the South too. See http://www.britishwildboar.org.uk/date.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3175626.stm

Maybe you actually *do* have squirrels if an entire feeder of sunflower seeds disappeared that quickly - I used to put out birdseed with sunflower seeds in it, because the sunflower seeds attract cardinals and blue jays. However, the squirrels usually would eat them up before the cardinals and blue jays ever had a chance to find them.

I bought some special powder one time to put on the birdseed that was supposed to keep the squirrels out of it - essentially it was hot pepper powder, which the birds supposedly can't taste (and was supposed to give them some kind of essential nutrients too), but is too hot for the squirrels' tastes. Unfortunately, the squirrels very quickly seemed to develop a taste for hot pepper and were back into the birdseed, eating all the sunflower seeds again!

I don't exactly hate the squirrels or anything - I have a squirrel feeder that I used to keep filled with peanuts or corn kernels, but when you do that, the squirrels start making nests everywhere, including the chimney (which I kinda need kept clear for the fire). They're also very destructive little creatures - we've had to have the electric company out a couple of times since we've lived here to replace the main wire that comes into the house because the squirrels have chewed through the ground wire! I've heard of them chewing through sheet metal chimney covers - nothing seems to stop them!

Hmm... I'm sitting here looking at the holly tree in my front yard which is still covered in red berries. Usually, the robins will descend upon the tree one day in early spring and eat all the berries off of it, but so far they haven't done so. I know there are lots of robins here already - I've been seeing them since February. Maybe I should put out a neon flashing sign?

Squirrels are just rats with good PR.

'Twas at dinner at a friend's house tonight, and another of the guests was telling us that squirrels had chewe 2 holes in the lid of her barbeque.

Shouldn't laugh,



Rats with good PR.....I dunno. I think it's the bushy tails myself.