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Now, I'm as fond of tweeters as much as the next person: nothing gladdens the heart like the sound of a rising lark on a summer's morn, etc, & so forth.

And maybe I'm imagining it, but not only does there seem to more birds about this year (mild winter for the most part?), but they seem to be much bolder than usual. I'm having a real job keeping them off stuff, including plants that - here at least - they would not really bother with. I'm having to erect ever-more bird scaring stuff and change it around a lot more often.

Anyone else suffering?

Definitely bolder - and I've been noticing it for the last couple of years. I've put it down to increased nesting around the garden. The chicks, I think, get used to our voices and footfalls. They certainly seem to know who we are when they leave the nest, as we are often ambushed by fledgling thrushes and blackbirds with wide open beaks. And I do mean ambushed - they leap out of the undergrowth in front of us. Couple that with the couple of adult thrushes who follow me all over the place (simply because they've learned that I dig up a lot of worms - but they come as close as any robin will) and I think that bolder is exactly the right term.

Mike

PS Herman the Blackbird was bolder still, but he hasn't come back this year.

If there's more birds about would I be right in thinking they would need to be bolder to get enough food if there's more of them to compete?

Not here - they even have a menu.

Mike

I've definitely noticed more birds around as well. I don't know if they're any bolder or just that there are more of them so I notice them more. I try not to encourage them down into the garden, I'd prefer they stay up in the trees as there's less chance of them becoming cat meat.

Zoe

My resident blackbirds have been getting as close as a couple of feet, when I've been out weeding. Also being quite vocal as well.

Thanks for the responses. Pigeons, blackbirds and starlings have been my major problems. The starlings stripped the (very large) early cherry crop before it was ripe. Some of them even used the assorted bird-detering devices (I change them each year and don't put them up before the first few cherries have started turning) as perches.

Pigeons destroyed the melon bed by pinching the leaves off the plants - not eating them, mind, just nipping them off. Then they started on the cucumbers. Bastards.

I suppose competition for resources might be behind it. I notice the farmers are deploying a lot more bird scarers and scarecrows than normal. Someone did tell me that a shortage of insects was to blame, but I can't see it myself. Insect eating species (hoopoes, swallows & black redstarts) are present in numbers and seem to be doing well.

I think that the hard winter we just had, and the amount of feed I got through making sure our feathered friends didn't suffer, I am sure they remember, we have never had so many birds nesting around our place. The only downside has been that we have lost all our Pigeons, due to the Kestrels, attracted to the area.

baldybloke wrote:My resident blackbirds have been getting as close as a couple of feet, when I've been out weeding. Also being quite vocal as well.

Ditto. I was even sharing a pasty with one the other day

I also have noticed more birds around here in Dorset especially pidgeons. To such an extent that I now have to cover everything when small with netting until it has grown enoughand got bigger. They also seem bolder than they have before.
Not just birds either but this year I have seen far more foxes(including the one who had my 6 chooks!) that I have over the last 4 years we have been here.