Garden Birdwatch

Spring has deffinitely arrived! The weather this month was typical of April - sunshine and showers. The birds have started to pair up and build nests. Our garden has plenty of suitable nesting materials in it - dried grass stalks, loose twigs, dried leaves, moss, wet clay/mud from the pond and wool fibre from hanging basket liners. There are also nest boxes and ivy clad fences, mature evergreen bushes, trees and a native hedge, all of which provide good nesting sites. The birds have certainly made good use of the nesting materials from our garden but sadly they all seem to have built their nests in neighboring gardens, apart from a wren. Previosu years we have had robins, blackbirds and great tits nesting in our nest boxes and bushes. Still, it is exciting to watch them gathering the nesting materials in a furtive, industrious and even comical manner (especially the starlings).

In spring it is particularly important to provide a wide selection of foods and fresh drinking water for the birds and to keep feeding stations and waterbaths clean. That is necessary to keep the breeding adults in tip-top condition and have a ready source of food for feeding the nesting female, the young birds in the nest and later on the fledgelings. As the month wore on and it got milder, more insects were available to feed the insectivorous birds but they still benefit from extra worms, dried or live, being provided too.

It is necessary to provide good shelter (trees and bushes) to protect the birds both from the weather and from the local cats who invade our garden. Cats are a big problem and can scare off the birds in the garden and even kill them. While we can accept birds being killed for food by birds of prey like sparrowhawks and kestrels or foxes, cats seem to treat their prey as a toy rather than food. They sometimes also try to eat the food put out for birds! Do they not get properly fed by their owners? Cat owners should be more responsible, especially in the spring and early summer when young birds are around. If you own a pet cat, try to keep it inside, especially after dusk, to reduce the danger to birds.

The photograph is of a male blackcap in a Mahonia bush.