wild birds Archives - The Smallest Smallholding

February 8, 2009 by Lucy

STOP!

IT’S BEEN SNOWING.

No seriously…stop.

I can’t believe the snow has been here for a whole week. A whole week! Never in my 26 years can I remember snow laying this thickly, and for this long. It’s ‘proper’ winter, not experienced since the last great snowfall (lasting around 2-3 days) of 1999 (see pic)!

Snow like this is great fun for kids and those that don’t have to go into work. Pretty awful for the birds though.

See, I can’t help but feel a bit guilty about it all.

Today I’ve run out of bird food so I’m hoping to persuade Rich to get me some more (with the usual promise of “I’ll pay you back when I’ve been paid…”, which should happen next week). The birds have been going mental where I’ve cleared patches of the snow away and put down seed and cheese. The hanging bird table needs topping up at least twice a day. So many different types of bird have been arriving, more than the usual suspects. Even some redwings came right down to gobble the berries on my pyrancantha bushes.

Looking around it doesn’t seem that many other people have made provisions for wild birds, and this makes me feel a bit sad. I wonder how “my lot” would do without me, as we’ve consistek. Aently had over 6 inches of snow this we small bird such as a finch or sparrow has an extremely fast metabolism, and with night temperatures falling to around -5C, it’s so important that they can stuff their faces during the day. OK, so there’s the natural order…survival of the fittest etc. But honestly, there’s not much in the way of natural food sources out there. I’m slowly changing that on my patch at least, but there don’t seem to be many other people that are bothered by at all. It just doesn’t cross their minds I don’t think.

So yes, my message here is feed the birds. And any other wild beasts that might cross your path. Now is a really tough time for them. DO IT!

We decided to bring the chickens into the conservatory a couple of nights ago, given how cold it’s got. They’ve been resolute in refusing to set even so much as a toe onto the snow, so spent most of the day looking grumpy in the shed. At least in the conservatory they can see all around them, it warms up nicely in the sun, and doesn’t get too cold at night. Chickens are much better at tolerating the cold than extreme heat. But Yoko was sleeping in her makeshift nestbox in the shed, and Maureen has been on her own in a big chicken Ark, sp we thought there wasn’t any extra body warmth that you’d expect a small flock roosting together to benefit from during the cold nights. So in they came.

I, meanwhile, have been moping around like a seething snotmonster. I’d been far too smug about the fact that I’d not had a cold in over a year and that I’d missed out on all this ‘flu business. Bleurgh. I actually woke up this morning feeling a bit better. The sunshine was streaming in through the window, and I thought “hmm, what can I do outside today?”. Then a split second later remembered that actually, I can’t do anything, because there’s snow everywhere. Still. I still get a tiny moment of surprise when I look out of the window and see so much white.

It’s actually making me feel a bit impatient, all this snow. I want to get sowing, I want to get going out there but the snow is just making doing anything impossible. I was planning on doing some baking this weekend, but being the decrepit tissue-laden snotslug that I am at the moment, it’s just not going to happen. Being ill is just so boring!

So for now I’m going to carry on making notes and doing little sketches and things. You see, I have a couple of little projects that I’m going to be blogging about this year. If the snow ever melts…

Parakeets at the Smallest Smallholding

December 22, 2008 by Lucy

We heard them a few days before I saw them, because they’re noisy little beggars. We’re quite familiar with the sound as Rich’s parents have had them dropping by for years. Yes, that’s right, the parakeets have moved north and are in and around the Smallest Smallholding.

Well, Bedfordshire isn’t really ‘north’ as such (unless you’re a Londoner, in which case, anything north of the Watford Gap is north, and that’s just ridiculous).I saw its unmistakable silhouette fly by this morning, and was quite taken aback. I haven’t seen any parakeets at our wildbird feeders; they’re still the domain of many a finch (gold, green and chaf-), blue tit, great tit, wren, sparrow (even a couple of tree sparrows, hurrah!), blackbird, collared dove, woodpigeon and even the most gorgeous little firecrest.

Rich’s Mum recently sent me a picture of one the parakeets that visits her garden (in Kent), performing a gravitational-defying acrobatic trick whilst nochalantly feeding alongside our less lurid, but equally stunning native birds. Parakeets are exceedingly agile and quite boisterous, but as far as I can tell, they won’t drive the other birds away.

Parakeets have been spotted in the wild as far back as the late 70s. The population has steadily grown over the intervening decades, with the parrots being able to adapt to our cooler climate with relative ease. It’s through that the parakeets are as a result of captive parrots either being purposely released into the wild, or escaping captivity.

But please, don’t get me started on the bird pet trade. Birds and cages. No, no, no.

The RSPB is currently against a cull of these non-native escapees, as there’s currently no evidence to support claims that Parakeets may be ousting native woodpeckers, nuthatches and starlings from nest holes. However the Government is obliged to monitor their impact (if any).

But for now I’m going to enjoy watching these exotic immigrants for a while, if I ever catch another glimpse. They’re certainly loud and raucous, with coarse barks rather than any kind of song. That’s definitely someting our natives can and do extremely well – sing beautiful songs for all they’re worth. Sit back and take note, parakeet.