Birds and things

[~Jonathan~]

I have an allotment plot and try to get down there when I can.

 

I am becoming more aware of wanting to be more green in relation to local wildlife and the garden and came across these two sites:-

 

Green Gardener

 

and

 

The Nestbox Company Ltd

 

There are some good ideas here

[Guest hallyscomet]

Thank you Jonathon,

 

They are really good, love getting out in the garden. Roses and camellias I love.

 

Especially planting bird attracting plants, we get a lot of lorrikeets on our bottlebrush and often put food out, thenthe king parrots and other native birds come along, they are soooo beautiful

 

Hailey

[Viper]

Go on Hailey make us jealous why don't you. As much as I love our native birds I wish they were a bit more interesting than sparrows and starlings. We do get woodpeckers and a cuckoo but I would love to see the birds in your country. It's one of my ambitions, to paint wild and exotic birds in their natural habitat. (I do water colour painting). The closest I get to these kind of birds is my extremely plucked African Grey and our very crazy Hahns Macaw.

Edited February 21, 2006 by Viper

[nellie]

Viper,

 

You don't have to leave England to see exotic birds.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3869815.stm

[~Jonathan~]

Sparrows might not appear all that interesting but be grateful you are able to see them (gosh that sounded like I was ranting at you, wasn't honest) as in some areas they are so severely depleted that they are a rarity

[Guest hallyscomet]

Hi Viper,

 

Like Nellie said you have lovely birds too.

 

Until I put some food out for exotic native birds, I never saw any in my garden. Surprise yourself by putting water and food out, out of reach of cats, and you will be amazed by what is in your neighbourhood

 

I found some pictures of my feathered visitors so you can paint them, I love to paint too.

 

Just from putting out some food I now get Galah's, Rainbow Lorrikeets, cockatoo's and kookaburra's & King Parrots the male is bright red and green the female all green, and another type of Rosella that is royalblue and red and navy. I will see if I can find some better real life pictures.

 

http://www.ozbird.com/avicontents.htm if you click on the bird it enlarges a real life picture

 

.

 

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~oldzac/page12a.htm

 

 

Here they are, as you keep pressing next it shows you some of the Aussie outback including paintings etc

 

Hailey

Edited February 22, 2006 by hallyscomet

[Paula]

They said on the news yesterday that we have to be carefull about attracting birds because of this bird flu thing.

 

That if we put out nuts ect or do stuff we should make sure we wash our hands thouroughly and not touch any dead birds.

 

 

Maybe theire scare mongering but i warned my two kids today not to touch any dead birds or pick up feathers.

 

 

Maybe im being a bit daft.Probably am but better to be safe than sorry.

 

 

We get robins in our garden.And weve a lot of ravens and crows.They dont half make a racket on a morning with there rotton crow song.But crows are cute i like them.

[lorryw]

I love watching the birds in our garden and feed them daily but we have been taken over by pigeons. They muscle all the other birds out of the way and eat all the food. They are absolutely huge and I am forever rushing out and shooing them away. All the other birds fly away in terror and the wretched pigeons take up safe positions on the fence waiting for me to go back in so that they can resume their snack. They have now started nesting on our house and we have no idea how to move them on.

Loraine

[Guest hallyscomet]

Hi Lorraine

 

If you have a look at the second attachment I think there is all sorts of advice about things like that, or you could do want I do to unwanted cats get out the supersoaker spray water gun,

 

Maybe there are some places on the net with advice like this.

 

There are certain types of food that only the exotics go for that the pidgeons don't like, thats possible

 

Hailey