Do birds carry food into gardens?

bottlebrush

I noticed in the past few weeks scraps of food on my lawn ie pieces of white pudding and slices of bread. My dog stays in the garden during the day mostly sleeps in his kennel. I wondered at first if one of my neighbours might be throwing over the food but then during the week I saw a woman who lives down the front of the estate emptying out sliced pans on the green in front of her house presumably for the birds. I'm wondering if it's possible birds are carrying the bread and dropping it in other gardens. I'd be afraid the dog would be eating contaminated food, maybe he has already, but thankfully he hasn't shown signs of sickness yet. Also, should that woman be feeding the birds like that and likely encouraging mice and rats as well?

em_cat

Yes birds do carry & drop. We live in an apartment with a SW facing balcony & get loads of food stuff dropped. It drives our terrier insane. It also is an issue because we’ve certain residents that throw their Sunday dinner into our communal garden. Now we have issues with ants, rats & stray cats fighting too.

miezekatze

I've seen seagulls take stuff out of open bins and then drop it on someone's roof, so yeah they do drop food.

There's a woman in my estate too that throws slices of bread at birds on the green every morning, not sure there are any rules against this though. I wish they would just use a normal bird feeder instead.

Graces7

I once found dozens of tiny fish in my fruit cage... a gull had flown over and dropped her beakfull..

goat2

em_cat wrote: »

Yes birds do carry & drop. We live in an apartment with a SW facing balcony & get loads of food stuff dropped. It drives our terrier insane. It also is an issue because we’ve certain residents that throw their Sunday dinner into our communal garden. Now we have issues with ants, rats & stray cats fighting too.

I always feed the birds, anything left over from dinner, bread, potato skins, the lot, more so during winter , and yes I see some taking whole slices of bread and flying off, some times I see it fall from them, I suppose this is the case for ye

Day Lewin

Magpies are also very untidy with things they snatch from compost bins
and foxes scatter mess around their feeding areas.

em_cat

goat2 wrote: »

I always feed the birds, anything left over from dinner, bread, potato skins, the lot, more so during winter , and yes I see some taking whole slices of bread and flying off, some times I see it fall from them, I suppose this is the case for ye

We also feed the birds, but we do not throw it into our communal courtyard.

bottlebrush

Thanks for your replies everyone. I just have to hope that I can pick up and bin this food before my dog gets to it but I can't do anything unfortunately if the scraps are dropped while I am not there. I take it I needn't be too concerned that he will come to any harm from eating any of it. I have had dogs for years but this is the first time this is happening.

aonb

My dog seems to find dropped food regularly when we go for a walk He sometimes gets an upset stomach or revolting poo which I blame on the rotten stuff hes picking up

misschoo

Yes I’ve found pieces of chicken on my balcony and a dead mouse! That was gross and glad I found it first before my dog did!