Where are the birds?

[highup]

Last winter I hang a bird feeder in the bush just in front of the kitchen window and put a mealworm feeder on the window itself.

That attracted fair number of birds, mainly blue tits, some great tits. I could also see wood pigeons and blackbirds feeding on the ground, I guess from the seeds spilled from the feeder.

That resulted in a pair of blue tits raising their family in the nestbox above that has not been used for 5 years - since I built it.

After fledging in May I could see occasionally a fledgling on the feeder. However in the last 3 weeks or so I do not see any birds coming to the feeder. The feeder has been half full and it seems that the amount of seeds is constant.

Just wondering are the birds gone to the richer feeding grounds, is there some kind of migration going on, or maybe the predators are responsible for this?

[KentYeti]

Not in my garden. Still birds in very good numbers and variety visiting the feeders etc.

[pressld2]

It's a strong probability that some of the fledgelings will have been taken by predators. For many species of garden bird more than 80% of chicks don't make it through to the following year to breed themselves. But it's not all bad news. At this time of year, food is relatively abundant and birds are much less reliant on our garden feeders. Most of them are probably feeding elsewhere but they'll be back in the winter!

Dave P.

[highup]

Just returned from the kitchen with my breakfast, there was indeed a healthy looking, all round blue tit on the feeder. I guess winter time they will be back in flocks .

[Adam Cheeseman]

Originally Posted by pressld2

It's a strong probability that some of the fledgelings will have been taken by predators. For many species of garden bird more than 80% of chicks don't make it through to the following year to breed themselves. But it's not all bad news. At this time of year, food is relatively abundant and birds are much less reliant on our garden feeders. Most of them are probably feeding elsewhere but they'll be back in the winter!

Dave P.

They could also have been booted out of the area by their parents so they can raise another brood and not be competition.

Cheers,

Adam

[witham]

we feed the birds all year round although not so much during the summer with a variety of different wild bird feed and we have not noticed any decline in their numbers or varieties, at the moment blackbird and robin mix, sunflower hearts, niger seed, general wild bird food is being gobbled up at a great rate of knots while the starlings and their young attack the fat balls with gusto every time we put a few out, they also like to glean around the sheeps trough and chicken feeder, we have a peanut feeder which is not getting that much use at the moment unless the woodpecker calls by

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

They could also have been booted out of the area by their parents so they can raise another brood and not be competition.

Possible but unlikely with blue tits, they tend to be single brooders. (I learnt that here on WAB last year! ) If the first attempt fails they will sometimes try again. When cleaning out the nest boxes in the autumn I once found a nest with 15 eggs underneath a second nest from which they successfully fledged.

Dave P.