Four-and-twenty blackbirds

[Baggy]

There are at least six cats round here, two of which have killer potential (ours couldn't care less about birds).

Today we have TWO fieldfares though, so it doesn't look as if the cat population is doing them much harm!

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

There are at least six cats round here, two of which have killer potential (ours couldn't care less about birds).

Today we have TWO fieldfares though, so it doesn't look as if the cat population is doing them much harm!

Yeah - plenty of fieldfares and redwings today here. Moggies are all indoors as far as I can tell.

 

[Amanda P]

Just thought I'd update you. We'd kept a count of the number of blackbirds in the garden at any one time, which peaked at 26.

Because we can (we're licensed), we've been catching and ringing blackbirds over the weekend.

We've ringed about 40. Two were birds we'd ringed before (one in July, one in November). This morning, there were a dozen blackbirds in the garden. None were wearing rings. (A minority of birds we saw yesterday afternoon we wearing shiny new rings). Clearly, there's a high turnover of birds.

Lots of the blackbirds we caught were clearly the Scandinavian type - big birds with long wings and often with brown scaly patterns on the edges of their contour feathers. It would be nice to hear whether these birds make it back to their summer territories - maybe we will.

Lots of them are very fat. Blackbirds normally weigh around 100g. We caught ten or so birds over 140g, and one 151g monster Scandinavian female.

One of my colleagues rings in his garden regularly. He reckons he can predict the approach of cold weather by the increase in blackbirds' weights.

 

[philipbh]

+1 for the Fieldfares and Redwings - which (according to the RSPB*) hang around together and are often seen in gardens when snow covers the countryside

As for Snow, Birds & Cats


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgmXrARr6aI&feature=channel


In case you haven't already

(* not that I'm disputing it, if anyone should know they should )

 

[wafflycat]

OOOH! OOOH! Guess what!! Owl outside hooting like mad! Cor! Excitement!!

Edit: from the sound it was a tawny owl

 

[rich p]

Just thought I'd update you. We'd kept a count of the number of blackbirds in the garden at any one time, which peaked at 26.

Because we can (we're licensed), we've been catching and ringing blackbirds over the weekend.

We've ringed about 40. Two were birds we'd ringed before (one in July, one in November). This morning, there were a dozen blackbirds in the garden. None were wearing rings. (A minority of birds we saw yesterday afternoon we wearing shiny new rings). Clearly, there's a high turnover of birds.

Lots of the blackbirds we caught were clearly the Scandinavian type - big birds with long wings and often with brown scaly patterns on the edges of their contour feathers. It would be nice to hear whether these birds make it back to their summer territories - maybe we will.

Lots of them are very fat. Blackbirds normally weigh around 100g. We caught ten or so birds over 140g, and one 151g monster Scandinavian female.

One of my colleagues rings in his garden regularly. He reckons he can predict the approach of cold weather by the increase in blackbirds' weights.

As a very amateur birdwatcher myself, I'm really surprised at the high turnover of blackbirds you have. Do you think it is something to do with where you are or would that be replicated everywhere?
I have assumed that I was feeding the same lot every day.

 

[Baggy]

That's surprised me as well...am pretty sure we've been feeding the same ones for the last couple of years, plus a few juveniles that keep geting chased off. Ours are quite slim.

You don't think that when Uncle Phil says he's ringing them he actually means he's filing their ID numbers off and selling them on illegally

 

[abchandler]

You don't think that when Uncle Phil says he's ringing them he actually means he's filing their ID numbers off and selling them on illegally

Surely chop-shop blackbirds would reduce the numbers, not increase them

 

[rich p]

That's surprised me as well...am pretty sure we've been feeding the same ones for the last couple of years, plus a few juveniles that keep geting chased off. Ours are quite slim.

You don't think that when Uncle Phil says he's ringing them he actually means he's filing their ID numbers off and selling them on illegally

We have a resident one at the allotment who I recognise because he has a white patch on his head. He eats very well.

 

[Amanda P]

It's well known that UK-resident blackbirds are joined in winter by foreign ones. That fits with what we've seen - a couple of residents re-trapped, and loads of big scandinavian-type birds muscling in too.

I guess it might be partly down to our location. We're in a village, but only 50 yards or so from mixed farmland. There are a couple of scrubby patches quite close which I know are sometimes used by a mixture of thrushes and blackbirds as roosts in winter, so it may be that they're simply getting up, coming straight to the garden and waiting there for the food.

A colleague has been ringing mixed thrushes near Ripon and has caught hundreds over the last few days, and new ones are still coming.

People often think they're feeding the same birds for years, and there's usually more individuals than they imagine.

One exception was at the Marine Biology Station at Millport. The kitchen staff there thought they had a regular herring gull coming to be fed; they called him Sammy.

Mrs Uncle Phil and I bodged up a trap from a couple of quadrats and a bungy cord and caught him and ringed him. He didn't enjoy it. There was blood. (Mine. Herring gulls are large, aggressive and powerful). That was in 1999 I think. He's still going there to be fed now - we get updates from time to time.