On a more serious note….please bear in mind that, although both parents know me well and are even prepared to feed from my hand, when it comes to their nest-site, I stay well away! I took this picture from the other side of the garden with a digi-scoped camera so as not to disturb either the chicks or the parents! If you have Robins nesting in your own garden already, then it’s worth remembering that, for the most part, they’ll be quite happy to put up with you hanging out the washing, doing a bit of gardening and even mowing the lawn, etc, but they wont like it if you start sticking your big red spotty nose in where it doesn’t belong….something that might easily cause them to desert the nest altogether!
When my Boss was a CO, he once inadvertently made himself an instant local celebrity by being identified as the man who, although more than happy to push and push and push the poor sods under his command until they literally dropped, decided to cordon off (by actually posting sentries) an entire section of the base, thus rendering most of the vehicle repair shop, five of the vehicles in it and an equipment storage shed completely out of bounds for more than a month….Why? For the simple reason that a pair of Redstarts (relatives of the Robin) had decided to nest under the open bonnet of a Land Rover! Meanwhile, the poor old mechanics had to carry on working of course, but outside in the wind and the rain (of which there is a great deal on the East coast of Scotland)!
Mmm….It’s amazing really, just how much respect he actually earned from a great many big, ugly, foul-mouthed Marines because of it ….not to mention the local civilian population! Mind you, no-one ever left a vehicle bonnet open and unsupervised during the Spring or Summer again! I wrote in my diary at the time about how the entire situation reminded me of an episode from “Sergeant Bilko”! Forget about protecting Faslane and the Polaris nuclear subs or the North Sea Oil rigs….I remember how more than 100 fully-armed, extremely tough and very highly-trained Commachio Coy Royal Marines were suddenly prepared to do whatever it took to ensure the safety of those bl**dy birds and their four chicks and to Hell with the rest! All of the chicks fledged by the way and things soon returned to normal!
Anyway, I digress yet again….Please bear in mind that “suitable” food for very young early-birds is not exactly abundant right now and that the current batch of unusually early-nesting species, such as Robins, Blue Tits and Dunnocks will be struggling to find enough wriggly things to satisfy all those gaping mouths. The fact is, if you’ve fed the birds in your garden right through what has been a very mild Winter, then you are much more likely to get pairs of birds nesting in or around your garden that much earlier than would normally be the case. However, the vast majority of insect species that the birds depend upon to feed their young will not have adapted anywhere near as quickly to either your bird-feeding habits in particular or to climate change in general, resulting in a severe shortage (at least for the next couple of weeks) of all those little grubs and caterpillars so vital to the staple dietary requirements of many baby birds!
Yes, I admit, there are a few Butterflies and things around already, such a Peacocks and Brimstones, but they’re the first-phase individuals….the ones who hibernate through the Winter and then become active again in the early Spring. They wont be around for long however and it will be the second-phase ones who’ll emerge from caterpillars later in the year and who you’ll enjoy seeing during the Summer!
Basically….if you feed the birds regularly throughout the Winter, then please continue to do so well into the Summer. There is a great deal of inter-species disharmony caused by climate change at the moment and, for the time being at least, the survival of chicks like the ones in the picture above could depend entirely upon your willingness to provide things like insect-based suet blocks, live mealworms and nibbed peanuts!
WARNING….Whatever you do, DON’T put out whole peanuts! The parent birds may try to feed the entire peanut to a chick resulting in it choking to death! It’s very common and the same thing applies to the artificially large mealworms you can buy these days….the ones fed on growth hormone! It’s also a good idea to avoid using cheap, grain-based bird-food bought from the guy down your local market….It will probably be imported and therefore likely to be covered with a cocktail of herbicides and insecticides that are potentially deadly to very young and adult birds alike! Proprietary brands, such as “Chapelwood” or the RSPB and BTO endorsed versions may be more expensive, but at least they’re safe!
As for the birds in my own garden, “GT” and “GTi” (the Great Tits) are currently sitting on eggs in the bird-table nest-box, three pairs of Blue Tits (so far) are in the Sparrow terrace at the font of the house, the Dunnocks are back in the pine trees near the patio, “DT” and his overly neurotic mate are in the pine tree next to the oil tank and the Wrens are nesting behind the top shed! On top of all that, I think that “Highbrow” the Song Thrush and his mate are nest-building on a shelf inside the old wooden den that I built at the top of the garden for my kids when they were little and….Oh yes, the House Martins are due back any day now!
Finally, I’m putting up a new Woodpecker nest-box in one of the trees in the woodlet at the end of the garden today. It may not prove successful this year, but there’s a good chance something will show an interest next year. The last time I put up a box intended for woodpeckers, it was occupied almost instantly by a pair of Starlings which I was quite pleased about really, if only because the familiar old Starling is a species in serious decline at the moment!
