Don't you just love Spring?! Our garden has all of a sudden become a focal point for families of Starlings & Sparrows. I love the way the fledglings open their beaks & flap their wings whenever an adult bird is near - they don't care if it's their parent or not - it has food!!
We have this small family of Greenfinches down most evenings now, the young are so adorable, often sitting there for half an hour or more with the one sunflower seed trying to get to the middle! I suppose I should really start buying the sunflower hearts for them instead to make it a bit easier!
Also saw something really positive at the weekend - the Housemartins are back rebuilding their old nests at the side of our neighbour's house! It seems to be taking them a while but fingers crossed we'll have young in a couple of months! I've never seen so many Housemartins before swirling above the roofs and they're so vicious to each other! One could be clinging on to the wall and another will literally fly up and pull it off! I'm going to try and video them this weekend if the weather is okay (i.e. dry!)
Will also keep an eye out for other fledglings in our garden in between shooing next doors cats away!
Does anyone have any tips for keeping cats out? So far we've come up with barbed wire and a gun! Don't think the neighbours would approve though!
4 comments:
So do you even remember your old garden now??
Lovely post - funny pics of the Greenfiches and nesting housemartins next door - cool!
I've read a few things to keep cats away - the weirdest but one I've heard mentioned twice by a vet is go to Dublin zoo and ask for a bag of tiger's poo (seriously), leave it in your garden and there's no way any domestic cat will ever come near again - too frightened they'd get eaten.
'Apparently' its not supposed to smell all that bad to humans - see how you feel about that option.
Other option is one of those noise things which omits a noise cats hate - think I saw them in B&Q - OR another one I heard - if you have walls around your house you're supposed to leave broken hazlenut shells on top of the wall cos they don't like standing on them.
So, take your pick!
No young Greenfinch here yet, but they should be in the garden soon.
I always coax the cats in, then chuck water over them! :-)
Hi Sharon. Just caught up with your last couple of posts. Gannets are our favourite sea birds as well, absolutely love watching them dive. I've never seen a Chough before but would really like to, maybe next time we're down Cornwall way, I think that's about the closest possibility from here.As for the cats..... I won't go there!!
The food disappears so quickly now they are feeding the young, good to see you are getting little visitors :) Very good news on the House Martins too.
Funny you should mention guns, I misread your post and thought you said 'in between shooting next doors cat'!!!
I have two electronic cat alarms but I'm not convinced they work although it would help if I remembered to change the batteries :(
I think you can buy Tiger poo on line and there are also some zig zag strips you can fasten to the top of your fence to deter them and there is an electronic water system too. The following is a good site to look...
http://www.deteracat.co.uk/
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