Who Goes There?

Last week, I spotted this newcomer to the garden.  As it turns out, he really really enjoyed the bread that I had thrown out to feed the wildlife, which allowed me to get a better look at what species it actually was.

It turns out, it was a Jay.

I have never actually seen a Jay in the wild before.  They are a member of the crow family reminiscent of a Magpie and by all accounts are a shy bird that tend to stick to woodlands.  As we have no nearby woods it was one of the last birds that I expected to see in the garden.

He was nervous, making his approach for food from the branches of one of the apple trees after assessing the location for danger (two large crows "liberated" his loot when he returned to the apple tree but he kept persevering).

We've seen him a couple of times since.  A neighbour has suggested that it may be a European Jay that has migrated here.  Who knows, but it is nice to see out of the window.

Bringing Up Baby - Moving Out (Part 3)

The Story So Far (click hyperlinks) for Part 1 and Part 2

It may be anthropomorphic but we really felt as Wally had developed his own personality, something that we didn't think was possible with a garden bird.  By the end of 2012 we had weaned him off his bottle and onto solid food.  He enjoyed the pigeon corn but he had taken a real liking to dried peas and was very discerning, throwing away a pea if it didn't meet his standards.  He enjoyed looking out of the windows and watching the other birds.  Wally seemed to be aware of the world outside.

Watching the other birds in the garden

The other thing that we found surprising was Wally's love of being bathed.  Now he was approaching full size,  we had to bathe him in the kitchen sink. He did like to be pampered.  Bathtime always made us laugh.  See the video below for why:

Drying off on the kitchen door

He was now at the point where he was outgrowing his bird cage.  When he was out of it, Wally liked to perch on the kitchen door and watch what ever action was going on and fly down onto our heads if he thought he was missing anything.  He didn't like going back into his cage on an evening and we knew that we had to find another way.  The cage would soon be too small for him to stretch or flap his wings.

A shoulder to land on

In our minds, we believed that when we released Wally back into the wild, he would stay close to the garden where he would be close to us and we could still feed and keep an eye on him.  To that end, Terry`s brother kitted out and an archway between two parts of the garden into a secure area where Wally could fly around and roost safely.  He also rigged the bird cage up to the outside of the gates and created an entrance, that would allow Wally to actually sit in the garden to get used to it without being in danger from predators.

Wally's "Conservatory"

We made sure that Wall had plenty of water, a places to roost and plenty of food.  We also included a heating disc that would warm his bed up during the winter evenings when the temperatures dropped.

Wally's outside enclosure

 Initially, Wally didn't seem keen to be in his new colder accommodation but he soon got used to it and we made sure that we saw him regularly and spend time with him.  We were pleased to see him spending more time in his cage watching what was happening in the garden so it wouldn't be much of a surprise when we started to acclimatise him to the outside world.

We added a piece of turf that we sprinkled with food to try and mimic the circumstances for foraging for food in the wild. We used our trail-cam to review what he was up to during the day while we were working and were pleased to see him on the floor looking for food as he would do in the wild.  We were becoming increasingly confident that he would be able to find his own food as he seemed to have the right instincts.

Trail-cam picture of Wally foraging

Perching on the Ladder

One bright and surprisingly warm Saturday in early February 2013 we decided to try him the garden.  Terry opened his cage and brought him out onto his arm.  Wally rushed up to his shoulder but was otherwise calm and curious about being in the garden.  It was all going well until we thought it would be a good idea for me to go back into the enclosure and try and call him through so he would know that he could get into his enclosure from the garden via the cage.  We hoped that he would use the enclosure as his "home".

The moment I disappeared out of his sight, Wally flew off Terry`s arm.  We watched in horror as he flew over the hedge and kept on going.

We were aghast.  One of us remained in the garden in case he returned while the other went off around the village to try and find him but to no avail.  Wally was gone.  For weeks afterwards we would call out to any Woodpigeon that we saw in the hope that it was him.  I would often walk around the village and nearby fields in the hope of being able to spot him (Wally had yet to develop the white flashes on his neck that  mature Woodpigeons possess so we thought if we saw him we would know it was him).

A few weeks later we did see a Woodpigeon without the white markings underneath the bird feeders just outside the kitchen window.  We hurried to the the door just in time to see it flee from when an adult male chased him away.

Do I think it was Wally?  I like to think so for the following reasons - we had seen no other juvenile birds during the time we looked after Wally and he seemed to have been born outside the normal breeding window.  I didn't think that there would be may birds like him in the area.

I chose to believe that it was Wally, and that he was making it fine without us.  One thing is certain, if we had not taken Wally in that day in September then he would not have made it at all.  I hope we gave him a fighting chance and ultimately that's all we could ever do.

Bringing Up Baby - Finding your feet - (Part 2)

(Part 1 can be found here)

It's extremely easy to find yourself becoming attached to something that you invest a lot of time and care in.  Wally would chirp happily whenever he saw us and waggle what passed as his wings. He did however save his real excitement for the blue baby bottle that we now fed him with.  Bottle feeding Wally became easier as we no longer had to guide his head into the feeding hole that mimicked the way Woodpigeon young feed.  He dove in straight away.

This resulted in us having to wipe him down after every meal as he ended up wearing as much of  the food as he ate.  Eventually we had to give him a bath, using a plastic container.  It turned out that he rather enjoyed sitting in a tub of warm water and being washed clean.

Over the days and weeks he got stronger.  When he was able to walk he made regular trips along the kitchen bench (making a beeline for the baby bottle).  He also liked to be near us and perch on a corner of the bench or kitchen sink to watch what we where doing.  Wally also started to run up our arms and onto our shoulder and snuggle in (and take the odd peck, especially at a mole I have on the side of my neck).

 His first flight consisted of flapping from one bench to the other to get closer to his feeding bottle.  Once he mastered this he began to flap down onto the kitchen floor to explore his surroundings.  It was only a day or so later that he was flying around the kitchen, using our heads and shoulders as landing platforms.  He also took a shine to my hat that I left on the table and promptly turned it into a bed for himself, spending his time adjusting the creases with his beak before settling down and going to sleep.

By this time he was too big for his cardboard box, so our neighbour gave us an old bird cage as Walter`s next home.  This was only ever going to be a temporary solution, as Wally was growing fast.

We needed to start thinking about a more permanent solution for the future.

Bringing up Baby - Saving a Woodpigeon Chick (Part 1)

If there was one thing in life we never expected to do it was to hand rear a Woodpigeon chick.

One Saturday in late September 2012 we were just finishing up painting the front of the house. A quiet public footpath runs past us into the village.  There are a lot of large conifer trees in the garden that grow next to the path. We were admiring out handiwork when I saw a young girl coming towards us, cradling something in her hands. That something turned out to be a very young chick that she had found on the footpath.  She handed it over to us and now we were responsible for a recently chick.

We were surprised that birds would have young this late in the year when the weather had turned cold.

Terry identified it straight away as a Woodpigeon (to me with it it’s overly large flat beak it looked duck like).  It was shivering and squeaking and we agonised over what to do with it.  It had obviously fallen out of its nest but the young girl had now gone and we had no idea where precisely on the path she did find it.  If we left it on the path for the mother to find the cold and the local cats would kill it very quickly.We couldn't in good conscience leave it to fend for itself.

I named it Walter (after the Forbidden Planet actor, Walter Pidgeon), or Wally for short.  We had no idea what sex it was.

Walter the Pigeon

When we were kids both of us had a little experience of raising young birds that had been found out of the nest so we thought it Wally would be pretty straight forward.  Drop food into its mouth, give it bread soaked in, milk and water from a dropper, straight forward.

Some quick Googling told us that keeping Wally alive wasn't going to be as straight forward as we thought. Turns out, Woodpigeons are not like most birds.

Most bird young are fed by their parents literally regurgitating food into the mouths of their young.  Woodpigeon young do the  exact opposite, they stick their heads into the parent’s mouth and drink a substance called crop milk (secreted from the lining of the adult bird’s crop).  You cannot give a young chick cow’s milk, or give it water (it gets that from the crop milk).

This proved to be problematic at seven o’clock on a Saturday when all of the shops are shut.

We had to improvise a feeding system until we could find something better.  Terry used an old chocolate pieces container which we filled with a paste made of ground up Weetabix and water.  We covered it with the part of an old latex glove fixed with an elastic bag and cut a slit in the latex.  We then had to grab Wally’s neck and guide his beak into the slot in the latex and pour the paste down his throat.

Terry's improvised feeding system

We placed him in a small tub with kitchen roll for bedding and kept him close to the radiator.  I was convinced when we got up the next morning that Wally would be a goner.

Sunday morning, and he was chirping to be fed.



This gave us the chance to hit the local garden centre which also sold chickens and ducks, so we were able to get pigeon corn for Wally, grind it up and make a thick paste with water. We also bought a baby bottle, removed the teat and replaced it with the part of a thick rubber glove. 

You have to be careful that their crop (where they store the food for digestion) that they do not have too much food inside as this can cause problems.  We would stroke Wally’s neck to if it was full, after a couple of feeds you get your eye in on what it should be like.
Feeding is also a messy business.

We ended up cleaning a lot of the pigeon corn paste off Wally as he tended to stick most of his head in through the “mouth” of the bottle.   Initially we feed him on our knee with a towel to keep him warm (and stop him from fowling our clothes) and as the days progressed the sight of the blue bottle coming out of the cupboard would send him into a spate of wing flapping and chirping.  






It was amazing to see such a helpless creature start to grow in a matter of days.  Wally started to put on weight quickly and his skin began to vanish as his first feathers started to come through.

A bird in the hand...

Not the prettiest of creatures

Feeding time is always exciting - and messy

Part two, next time.

Trial and Error

There are times when I think we have the most spoilt garden birds in the county.  Currently, we have nine different bird feeders in two locations around the garden in addition to two bird baths and a drinking spot.  The first feeding area is directly outside the kitchen window where the feeders hang from the branches of a silver birch tree. The second is a free standing feeder station that we located in the corner of the garden.

The feeding station in the corner of the garden.

There's been a fair bit of trial and error over the years but what we found works best for us in our particular garden can be completely different a few gardens away (our neighbour Bill regularly gets different bird visitors than ourselves despite being just over a hundred metres from us).  Here are a few tips that we've learnt over the years that might be helpful.

Reduce the Waste
We use peanuts, fat-balls, niger seed and by far the most popular are sunflower hearts.  Sunflower hearts are a little more expensive that sunflower seed but it does cut down on the messy seed husks the birds discard.  We were shocked to see a large brown rat one morning chomping away on the discarded husks, not what you want to see close to a kitchen door. Sunflower hearts definitely reduce the mess.

Niger seed, is very popular with goldfinches, but it will also kill the grass underneath the feeder after a while.  We use a niger feeder with an detachable tray, this cuts down on the amount of seed that hits the ground.

Location, Location, Location
Birds seem to prefer a bit of cover close to the feeders, so they can dash to safety should a Sparrowhawk or other predator put in an appearance.  We originally placed the feeding station in an open area of the garden and nothing used it.

A Bullfinch pays a visit

Feeders
The choice of available bird feeders now is staggering.  We've worked our way through quite a few and personally (for our circumstances anyway) more expensive metal feeders for the sunflower hearts and peanuts work best.  Remember that you need to clean and sterilise the feeders regularly to avoid any nasty diseases that can spread through the bird population and metal feeders tend to be more resilient to repeated disassembly and reassembly.

If you can provide a source of water for the birds as well, this would be fantastic.  You'll be surprised just how many birds this can attract to your garden.

A place to bathe is always welcomed

Squirrels
I'm not the greatest fan or grey squirrels and if you have them in your garden chances are they will pretty much trough what food you have out,  They can also destroy your feeders themselves by biting through the perch plugs and pulling them out, thus emptying the food all over the ground.  Metal feeders can stop the destruction but they can still get the food. (although they don't bother with niger seed so we just have a plastic feeder for this).  If you mix in chilli powder with the feed the squirrels won't go near it and it won't have any effect on the birds.  (I'm not totally heartless, I don't do this with the peanuts so they can eat something untainted).

The plastic birdfeeder was ruined within the week.

You can't stop
If you start putting food out for birds, especially in the winter months when food is scarce, then you need to understand that it is a long term commitment.  Birds will come to depend on this source of sustenance, and if you forget to refill the feeders or just plain stop then you could unwittingly have a detrimental impact on the bird population.

It is worth it, because you get to see things like this.

A Greater Spotted Woodpecker loves fat-balls.