Love em or hate em. which garden birds for you?

The Master.

After viewing the birds that frequent my garden over the last few weeks ive noticed that some birds are good Craic and others are complete bastards.
I used to lump all crow family birds in together but i have great time now for Jackdaws, they look sleek, hang about in couples, seem to get on with other birds and dont bogart the food.
Please post your top 5 favourite birds and also your top 5 least favourite birds.
If you can make 10 of course

My ones good guys =
1 Blackbirds, theres one that always stares at me with a gobful of worms.
2 Robin , Im still seeing one around the garden, i thought they beat it somewhere else?
3 sparrows, quarrelsome, fun to watch, plentiful, cute although can disappear totally if im tardy with with food.
4 Bullfinch, only seen one so far around here but lovely looking bird, great colours.hoping to see more
5 Jackdaws, as i said before, a pair started making a nest in a crack in my fascia but they aborted the nest and went elsewhere.

My bad guys =
1 Magpies (A.K.A Sky bastards) They fascinate me, i love to watch them doing what they do but i hate having them around here.
2 Starlings , i dont mind them but they are noisy beggars and there are hundreds of them in the back which means poop central.
cant really make more.

Ronan H

I'm going to break this thread already by not posting ten, or even five, because I don't think I know the name of that many birds...

...but I do concur that Robins are good and Magpies are bad.

I too am still seeing a Robin in the garden on occasion, a friendly fellow to be sure. It doesn't hang around much when the Magpie(s) arrive though. I don't blame them though. The Magpies are not pleasant much.

There is this pheasant that appears from time to time also, and the fecking noise out of it! Japers it would wake the dead!

Cool thread!

Ro

artieanna

Have to say I love the pied wagtails they always tease my cats by hopping around them :O) soooo clever!

I like most birds even the mags always look dressed for a wedding, full dress suit with tails ;O)

Not awful fond of grey crows very large and can be v aggressive, saw one having a battle with a heron in mid air - Heron lost :O).

kylith

I find magpies fascinating, though I too dislike them after spending a year living in a house where every morning at about 5am a magpie would perch right above my window and sound that machine-gun call of theirs. Sparrows are also noisy buggers in the mornings.

I'm very fond of tits; when I was a kid I used to hang peanuts in the mesh left from fat balls, and there was one great tit that worked out how to stretch the mesh so he could make off with whole peanuts.

Amalgam

In our garden..

I love the Dunnock, very unassuming little bird, plain at a quick glance, but study its plumage a bit more.. and the camouflage (slate grey chest), along with the diamond elipse like striasions, moving away from the chest and along the wings, are quite delicate.

Robin, not much to say, two of them stalk me about the garden, into the shed, into any open door, if there's a chance. You may not always see them, but they can be close enough to feel the air move about your ears.

Magpie. I hated them in the past, but I've been 'grooming' one with food.. and there's not a peep out of him\her since, good as gold.

Bullfinch. Ours are very animated and quite comical. Bossy female! the male doesn't get long at the feeder.

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To be honest, I like just about anything that moves about the garden. (except burglars..)

One bird that drove me bananas for about 3 winters was a Blackcap that basically started screaming blue murder and denying any other small bird the use of our main feeders, but without productively using the feeder itself.

Ugh, I was having Wile E. Coyote style dreams, thinking of how to get rid of the little sod.. water, high voltage, fire, petrol, batteries, dart guns, remotely controlled shockers, catapults. I would have done anything.

The solution was dirt simple. Spread the feeders out to the four corners of the garden. The tits would basically take the piss out of the Blackcap at that point. Not an ideal solution (I wanted feeders close to the windows!), but it worked.

Half-cocked

I like them all (even Magpies, Starlings and Hooded Crows), my one hate is Feral Pigeons.

human 19

After viewing the birds that frequent my garden over the last few weeks ive noticed that some birds are good Craic and others are complete bastards.
LMAO

If you want to get to get to know your boids..buy a bag of suet pelets from Super Valu and start by scattering them around...then you can lead to throwing them to the boids. Based on this premise...

1) blue tit.. 1st (and only) so far to eat out of my hand. Before this , when throwing the pellets on the ground, the blue tit would dive bomb the goodie in question and take off straight away while the others would still be hoppng around and generally fannying about before taking it.

2) Chaffinch. They Love the pellets and have even come inside the house to pick some from the floor of the hall. Interesting to se them circle the food on the ground as if they suspect a trap. When I pull up outside the gate after work, I sometimes see about 6 of them lined up on the fence like something from a Roobarb cartoon,waiting for their grub. In the morning, especially when its raining I can get about 10 of them zooming in for food. I have even weaned a chick off it's moms food. As soon as mom saw that it was capable of getting its own food, she refused to feed it again.

3) Robin. I just love their style. They also like the pellets and its easy to get them to start singing by doing a bit of a robin style song yourself when they are perched on something. they have also come into the house for food.

4) Great tits/coal tits. Also go for the pellets. Cant get as close to them as a blue tit though

5) Wren. Dont know if they like the pellets as they are never out in the open. Love their song (like a robin on cocaine) and the fact that they can be down the end of the garden but sound like they are just outside the door. I dont know how the cats can stand lying under one with that CONSTANTwarning cry in their ears.It would do my head in.

6) Greenfinch. They dont bother with the pellets (or the fatballs). Just hang around the peanut feeder. They also like the seeds I spread on the bedroom windowsill (cats cant get them there). I love to watch their squabbling around the peanut feeder, especially when it starts to run low and space is at a premium.

7) Magpie. A cute hoor. Beautiful bird but doesnt trust me. Whenever it sees me feeding the others in the morning, it settles at a safe distance and as soon as I get in the car it dives to hoover up whatever is left. Excellent eyesight also. Even halfway down the garden it can still see me in the kitchen through a security grill , and flies off immediately.

8) Swallow. not interested in the food. no interaction but love seeing them flying around the place

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NOT MAD ABOUT

1) Wood pigeon. Always hated those bastards! Waking me at all hours with their  ur ur ur ur ...ur UUURR ur ur,  ur UUUUUUUUUUURRRRR ur ur

2) Crow. Probably just reminds me of winter.

3) Goldfinch/pied wagtail . No interaction with me

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B0jangles

Everyone in my house has gotten very fond of the grey crow family who live in a cedar opposite us; they've been rearing families there for at least 15 years now - though the adults there now are not the original pair - one of them died a couple of years ago and the other one found a new mate.

This new one was kind of weird - he would take several baths a day and get so soaking wet he'd have to walk over to a tree and climb up it instead of flying, and would always wash his food before eating it. Sadly he's gone now too and has been replaced by another adult.

We got into the habit of feeding them canned dog food last year when one of their unfledged chicks fell out of the nest and was wandering around on the ground for several weeks; the little guy would come up to your feet and demand to be handfed, we did do this sometimes, but mostly gave food to the parents so they could judge when he needed feeding.

At the start they would get very aggressive if we went near the chick, but after a few days they seemed to recognise that we weren't a threat and got very mellow about the whole thing; this year since the spring was so crappy we gave them food again.

Nowadays the bigger adult comes up within 10 feet of me to pick up food - he stashes it in little holes all over the garden; he even disguises the stashes by pulling up little tufts of grass to put over them.

B0jangles

human 19 wrote: »

1) Wood pigeon. Always hated those bastards! Waking me at all hours with their ur ur ur ur ...ur UUURR ur ur, ur UUUUUUUUUUURRRRR ur ur

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Get ready to have your pain increased -

ur ur ur ur ...ur UUURR ur ur, ur UUUUUUUUUUURRRRR ur u

sounds kind of like they are saying to each other:

"I looooove you, baby, I loooove you, baby"

Noticed this a few years ago and now I can't hear it as anything else - infuriating.