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jcs0001:
John, you and Mal have a nice selection of birds.  I notice the starling - lots of them over here.  We don't feed them but have a lot of trees and bushes and it does attract a fair number of visitors - they really like the berries on our Mountain Ash tree.  I did notice a California Quail hanging very close to some of our bushes today - suspect there may be some young ones hiding out nearby as they usually stay further away from humans.  Very occasionally we see a Baltimore Oreole but I've never got a good photo.

Best of Luck,

John.

websterz:
We have more starlings than we can keep killed here. They (The US Starlings at least) are rats with wings. Nasty disease carriers that excel at destroying songbird nests and decimating less aggressive species. I kill them on sight.  :hammer:

Bogstandard:
Websterz,

That is really an unfortunate thing, we have the same sort of problems with magpies, a very beautiful looking bird, but vicious with it. In fact it was only last week, while Bandit was taking me for a walk, we came across four magpies trying to kill a fledgling starling, they had it pinned to the ground and were taking real nasty pecks at it. By driving my buggy over the grass, they were scared away and the fledgling, feathers ruffled, managed to get away.
In fact, Vinnie the mog had a run in with one that was perching on our fence, and Vinnie was chased off by it.

We try to cater for everything in our garden, but some things are a real pest, mainly wood pigeons and collared doves. They just land in the seed trays and gobble up everything, while pecking at the smaller birds who try to come in to feed. We wouldn't mind if they just stayed on the floor, picking up the pieces the smaller birds can't or won't eat. Plans are afoot to modify the trays so that won't happen. At the moment we just scare them away with a large water pistol, that keeps them at bay for about 30 minutes.

I actually moved the main feeder from the garden centre to where it is now, in a corner. A sparrowhawk found that it was easy pickings where it was situated before, but now, they can't get a good flight path in now, to snatch the little ones away. I know it is only nature taking it's normal course, but that can happen away from our little sanctuary.

John

John Hill:
John, I believe your magpies are different species to ours but yours sound just as anti-social.. :coffee:

John Stevenson:
Magpies are OK if you train them right. 



You just have to let them know who's boss   :wave:

John S.

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