grow your own....

[Garden Carpet]

meal worms.

Found this article for a friend and thought it might be of interest to those of you who feed them to your birds.

jaki

Breed your own mealworms - The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

I have a feeling i may have posted this before . If I have... my apologies

[nightshade]

It does ring a bell but never mind it is worth repeating

[Paul mabbott]

.... and also, why not grow your own sunflower seeds &c? I read an interesting piece some weeks back about how seed growing our north European garden birds was creating problems for the wildlife in the areas where it is grown .... There's another thread on the impacts of growing food for humans in distant places: we ought really also to be thinking about the impacts of growing bird food?

[smartie]

Hmm. Not sure that filling my entire street with sunflowers would meet the appetite of the birds round here, but it's a good point. RSPB claim that they are encouraging UK farmers to grow black sunflower seed, but I don't know where or how much.

[Paul mabbott]

Yes, growing sunflowers is easy so why can't it be done locally? One of the big problems mentioned, I think but my memory isn't reliable, was nyger - apparently it was being grown intensively using insecticides which, of course, killed off the insects and then had a knock-on effect on the local bird population (both by poisoning and by depriving them of food). seems more than ironic that birds elsewhere should suffer so that we can encourage some in our gardens?
Instead of importing nyger, ought we to be cultivating fields of thistles or whatever composite is attractive to finches and easy to grow?

Originally Posted by smartie

Hmm. Not sure that filling my entire street with sunflowers would
meet the appetite of the birds round here, but it's a good point. RSPB claim that they are encouraging UK farmers to grow black sunflower seed, but I don't know where or how much.

[Kymba]

Thanks jaki.. another thing added to my list of things i can try at my Wildlife centre and in local schools with the children when i start...
this web site has been a god send for me ....

[Garden Carpet]

Glad you found it useful Kymba.

[Wild-Woman]

Just out of interest, what do meal worms turn into?

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

Just out of interest, what do meal worms turn into?

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

[badgerwatcher]

Huge green scaley fire-breathing dragons, so you have to make sure you don't let them get to that stage!
We have an expert for the meal worm production, etc. in Elizabeth B. Are you there, Elizabeth? If we all close our eyes, children, and call her name together......
One, two, three.......
Elizabeth.........

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

Just out of interest, what do meal worms turn into?

The darkling beetle Tenebrio molitor.

[badgerwatcher]

That is such a lovely name, Paul, the darkling beetle. Isn't there a darkling thrush in a poem?

[Brachystegia]

Originally Posted by badgerwatcher

That is such a lovely name, Paul, the darkling beetle. Isn't there a darkling thrush in a poem?

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

[minstrels] The Darkling Thrush -- Thomas Hardy

[badgerwatcher]

Oh thank you, Brachystegia. That's wonderful. How can anyone not love Thomas Hardy?

[smartie]

Originally Posted by badgerwatcher

Oh thank you, Brachystegia. That's wonderful. How can anyone not love Thomas Hardy?

Oh, very easily, I fear. The novels are all so miserable. I never got away with Dickens, either, while I'm in confessional mode. And me an English graduate, too

[badgerwatcher]

Oh, I know his novels are miserable, Smartie, and really hard work, with gristly chunks of prose to chew through, but so worth it for the characters and the unusual stories!
Having said which, I never managed Dickens!
George Elliot, though, Silas Marner is an old favourite, and that's fairly heavy going.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by badgerwatcher

That is such a lovely name, Paul, the darkling beetle. Isn't there a darkling thrush in a poem?

Actually, there are quite a few darkling beetles (Tenebrionidae) - just means that they come out as dark approaches .... I think

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by smartie

Oh, very easily, I fear. The novels are all so miserable. I never got away with Dickens, either, while I'm in confessional mode. And me an English graduate, too

Dickens is just plain tedious but Hardy is readable and not all of them are depressing - the problem is that anyone getting through Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbevilles isn't going to be inclined to search for the cheerful ones!

[henrya]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

.... and also, why not grow your own sunflower seeds &c?

We had a sunflower growing competition and the birds ate the seeds as soon as they were ripe - didn't save any for the winter! Maybe you just have to grow lots and lots, but I wonder if it really would work on a garden scale.

henrya

[Kymba]

Oh dear! I just Love Dickens does that mean i am in the Minority (again)
But then i just love reading.. I also enjoy Shakespeare

[badgerwatcher]

I like Shakespeare, but only understand the chunks I've learned by heart! It seems to take a while for my brain to process it all. Those bit's I love!

[Kymba]

You can never have to much Knowledge...... Life is a continuous learning curve

[smartie]

Originally Posted by Kymba

Oh dear! I just Love Dickens does that mean i am in the Minority (again)
But then i just love reading.. I also enjoy Shakespeare

No, I think if you like Dickens you are pretty much in the majority - it's those of us who don't that have to apologise for ourselves. I love (most of) Shakespeare and will read almost anything by anyone at least once.

I "did" Tess of the D'Urbervilles for O level at school (that dates me, doesn't it? ) and that left me too scarred ever to like Hardy.

[nightshade]

Darkling;uncannily or threateningly dark or obscure
Darkling;occuringin the dark or night
I prefer the former

[Paul mabbott]

Dickens isn't bad - indeed a very good writer and social commentator but most of his work was written for serialisation in magazines so each chapter had to last a week .... and it seems like it! I'm not in favour of abridging books &c but I think that, for Dickens and others of his ilk, chopping half the ramble would be a good thing!
If you thought Tess was bad, you should think yourself lucky you didn't do Jude ....
Someone mentioned George Elliot - she was a very good, clear writer with very convoluted plots - so if Silas was tricky it's in the same way as a modern thriller, I think!
With Shakespeare you have the difficulty of a different vocabulary, rhyme &c: it's a different kettle of fish from modern fiction so needs 'learning' - not in the sense of learning by rote but of looking up some of the words, getting used to the form and sinking into it: not difficult after the first two or three plays!
If you want tricky then you need to try James Joyce's later works ..... Ulysses needs to be taken with a glass (or two) of something over long sittings in an old Parisian cafe or Dublin pub. Finnegans Wake probably needs something stronger, and possibly a brain transplant

Getting back to the topic. Henry, I don't think I could grow enough sunflowers for my hangers-on, not if I wasnted to grow anything else. On the other hand, my original point I recall , I see no reason why it shouldn't be grown by UK farmers ....

Originally Posted by smartie

No, I think if you like Dickens you are pretty much in the majority - it's those of us who don't that have to apologise for ourselves. I love (most of) Shakespeare and will read almost anything by anyone at least once.
I "did" Tess of the D'Urbervilles for O level at school (that dates me, doesn't it? ) and that left me too scarred ever to like Hardy.