Impassioned Plea about your garden.

[Pecker]

Hi all, had a rubbish day today (well it was 13th!). Finished up with a neighbour cutting down loads of trees and hedges just when all the birds are nesting.

This isn't another enviromental green rant about depleting Ozone. It is something you can do, Please read it.

We hear all this glib talk about saving the planet. I want to ask you, why bother? After all if we were really serious we would start at home - the garden.

There is no point in all this recycling, energy saving, less packaging etc if there is going to be nothing left to enjoy the planet other than us. PLEASE PLEASE, just stop and think about your own garden. With the decimation of trees and landscapes around us YOUR garden is SO important. Before rushing into cutting back the bushes, hedges and shrubs just stop and ask if it could wait at least a few weeks to let the birds nest and have foraging grounds.
If you want to totally remove trees and large shrubs, can't you leave just one?? It really DOES make a difference.

Around here we have lost about 60% of the trees in the last two years - not helped by the local church cutting down over 40 in one go! We have noticed a real decline in the number of birds especially song birds since then. Today will make it worse.

One more point, Tress and shrubs absorb sound. I can tell you for a fact a large 6 foot fence all around a property will let more traffic noise in then trees will, let alone the fact that birdsong will also now not cover the sounds.

Do you really want to live in a sterile neat garden or a neat garden but with wildlife and birds?

We put in a small pond last year. It has been fantastic, with a large rock at one end, all the birds come down and bathe in it, it is so funny to watch. Can you do that?

Two doors down put a huge fence up. Now we no longer get the Fox, Badger or Hedghog - even though they knew the route the animals used. Wouldn't even create a small gap.

I'm not a "greenie" and I personally think a lot of this environtment stuff is utter rubbish and an excuse to raise taxes. BUT I do want to live and let my kids live in a world where birds and wildlife also live.

PLease, look at your own back garden, you REALLY can make a difference. If you were to actually plant a large tree or shrubs or put in a small pond, I can almost guarentee you would get more wildlife in your garden.

Woody

 

[ByronBlack]

Hi Woody, you make some nice points, and some that I agree with. My own garden is being overhauled at the moment, with the direction of SWMBO and the nature-side of things were part of the overall plan, so we are planting a number of trees and shrubs as well as space for a range of bird-boxes, lady-bird boxes and other things.

However, for most pet owners like myself, you do not want foxes or badgers anywhere near the garden and shouldn't be encouraged into towns if possible. They have their own natural habitat in the countryside and in my opinion not compatible with urban/town living (more for the safety of the animals than anything else).

Birds however should be encouraged.

 

[RogerM]

I agree with much of what you say Woody. But with a plague of rabbits where we live I've had no choice other than to put a fine mesh fence around the garden because they decimated everything in sight! Garden centres sell very expensive rabbit food.

A couple of years ago we finally removed an established Leylandii hedge that was a pain to maintain and just so dull. We did notice a reduction in the number of birds at the table near the house, but still loads in the copse at the top of our garden - so just moved 20 yards I guess. Now the replacement Griselinia hedge is becoming established they are slowly moving back down the garden. No regrets - the Leylandii was just too ghastly!

 

[Pecker]

Byron,

to a certain extent I do agree with you, I should point out that I actually live fairly rurally and the foxes and badgers live all around us here and have done for donkeys years so it is from that viewpoint I come from. When they are so used to a certain run and there isn't really a need to cut it off... if you move into the country then expect country living etc

I do not want to get into a debate here about the rights and wrongs of foxes etc moving into towns, badgers and diescese etc etc but by the same score if we keep building on green sites then what alternative do they have? But thats another subject entirely.

Bird boxes are a great idea too, I've actually just made one for house sparrows. It has 3 compartments as they like to live communally. It will be interesting to see if they move in. But I may well have not put it in the best location so we will see...

Woody

 

[les chicken]

We also used to live in the country until they started dropping houses in by helicopter over night. Or that is how it seems with the number that has been built around us in the last few years. They also bring with them an increase in the yobbish destructive type of children, but that is another story.

With the increase in houses and the birds habitat decreased there was a distinctive reduction in songbirds in the garden. Magpies pinching the eggs and fledglings. Then about three years ago one of the neighbors installed an RSPB approved magpie trap in the bottom of his garden, resulting in about 150 magpies less than before.

Now our gardens are teeming with songbirds especially blackbirds, some thrushes and ring doves etc. The dawn chorus is delightful.

Les

 

[Alf]

When did Magpies stop being birds? Or did the RSPB change its name in some way I've missed? Sheesh, it's as bad as gardeners. The only difference between a plant and a weed is whether the gardener wants it. :roll:

Sorry, just a small RSPB-related rant. I'll move along now.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Paul.J]

I'm with Les on the subject of Magpies.
They and the Squirrels we get do seem to have scared the other birds away,even the Bluetits we had nest last year and were starting to nest again this year have been frightened off,as the Magpies were attacking them.
Even our feeders hardley get used now,only by Cyril the Squirrel.
Also had an Heron come and have a go at me neighbours fish.
Wildlife :roll:
Paul.J.

 

[Paul Chapman]

We have quite a few squirrels because we have two walnut trees, but find them no trouble. They and the many different birds in our garden seem to go about their day-to-day activities without bothering one another. However, the magpies are a different matter all together. They attack anything in sight - when I was working, I used to watch each morning as they even tried to attack the 6.18 to Waterloo! Three of them used to gang up on our previous cat and once they poked him in the eye with a beak, causing him some quite serious damage. Not my favourite bird.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Where I used to teach in Dorset most or nearly everyone had a condemnation of magpies. The farmers sons dealt with them in the 'traditional' :wink: agricultural farmers way and one member of staff even devised a humane method of trapping them, for onward disposal at a later date I assume, probably in the same traditional way :roll: :wink:
Very unwise to raise the fox hunting debate tho' within the countryside community (blue touch paper springs immediately to mind)........ :shock: :wink: - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

We have lots of foxes around where I live and I often see them in my garden and have found them no bother. When I lived in Thornton Heath the cat we had at that time developed quite a friendship with one fox. At about 5am each morning I used to see them walking down our road together and when they reached our house, the cat would come in and the fox would disappear along the alleyway opposite our house.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Pecker]

Local cats and foxes just stare at each other, then go their own ways around here. My dog thoughsits behind the curtain at 8.30 every evening still waiting for the fox to arrive so she can bark at it...unfortunetly it no longer does...

woody

 

[engineer one]

it ain't just the back gardens that cause the problems, with so many people concreting over their front gardens for hard standing for the car,
and ignoring proper drainage and thus causing all kinds of long term problems with the houses having problems with the earth round them drying out too quickly. we all know that the local drains are generally overloaded when it rains heavily, and those homes at the bottom of even small hills are now often getting flooded.

in the old days when we had less money, we used to care for the home before beautifying it. now it seems that external appearance is more important than the overall impact on the environment. and oh yes i know the water companies stole the water, but we did not help. :roll:

paul :wink:

 

[Green]

I have just moved into the country side having lived in a busy city (Edinburgh) for most of my adult life.
We try to do our best with the small garden we now have, planting RSPB approved flowers, native plants and putting bird food out. We are still a bit clueless though...
Can anyone advise on the best type of birdhouses, feeders and such like to have?