Getting Started With Bird-Feeding 6 and New Photos

Hi. Your in for a tweet! That failed as a pun but I don't care.  1) you are getting the super-fun bit (I have found it super-fun anyway) of Getting Started With Bird-Feeding. 2) you are getting more photos of birds taken by... guess who! ME! 3) therefore you will be getting a Getting Familiar With... post. Yippee! We'll start with the photos. Right. Let's set the scene. It is extremely windy and the wind is icy and it freezes your face off totally. Well it will if you are on top of Portsdown Hill with only a t-shirt, hoody, and some trackys on (I should have worn proper stuff but it looked nice so I didn't). A field has just been ploughed and the Herring-gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Rooks and Carrion Crows are going absolutely nuts over it. Okay. That's enough scene setting. Here comes photos! Yay! Bring me more!

nice view off the top of the hill

the ploughed land

the Black-headed Gulls going nuts on the ploughed land

awwwwwww! it's a Robin

more nice views with a Carrion Crow about to invade the Black-headed Gull party

Well that worked. I nearly got stabbed in the face with a Blackthorn branch and I accidentally took a photo of it. not all bad

a Red Fox run

a European Rabbit warren entrance awwwww bunnies

a Black-headed Gull who is STILL in eclipse plumage!

the "eclipse gull" again. maybe it is Eclipse himself (I'll have to tell you about Warbo Gull Naming some time)

 Next time we will be Getting Familiar With The Gulls And Crows And The Robin. A random mix-up (this one costs your face not 10p) this time not a nice trio from the same family. Ah well. Who cares?

JUMP BREAK! HELL YEAH! never used one before this one!
Woodcock Productions presents The Second Part Of The Awesome Double Post! Okay. That was weird. But it was a nice exiting version of saying Hi. Today we will be talking about the feeding station. a feeding station is just more than one feeder in one place, or to describe it better, a group of feeders. You can buy feeding station poles like this one:

Gardman feeding station pole.

People's ideas of what a feeding station is vary too. This "feeding station"

from find-me-a-gift.co.uk is what I would personally call a quirkily epic seed-hopper but there we go. Nice Coal Titmice there! You can home make feeding stations too. You can quite easily make this

feeding tree (you just hang feeders on a tree) which I found on the RSPB website. My station is quite simple compared to some (I have added more feeders since this photo was taken last year).

my feeding station

This one is rather more extravagant (I think):

Plus it keeps out squirrels. This "squirrel-proof" feeder failed a bit though. Don't believe every thing! I found it on the Daily Mail website. He did manage to get out, poor little fat UK invader!

Daily Mail squirrel fail! lulz.

If you live in a flat with no garden and you are thinking damn this flat there's no garden for a feeding station you can buy or make window feeding stations like this:

window station from birdfeedingstation.com

Nice Blue Titmouse there! You can hand-tame these. I am trying to hand-tame the Robins. Here's how:

• Establish a Routine:
  
  
  • Begin by filling your feeders at the same time every day, preferably in the early morning, when birds actively seek food.
  
  
  • Include a few chopped walnuts or pecans, which many birds relish, where the birds can get at them immediately.
  
  
  • Certain birds will catch on and show up soon after you visit the feeder.
  
  
  • Spend some time near the feeder, watching them calmly, maybe at times talking gently - to get the birds used to you.


• The Training: 
• One day, don't fill the feeder but stand or sit at the expected time near the feeder. Place feed in a cup formed by your palm upturned and fingers pointing up for a perch.  Birds see well from a distance and will easily notice that you are holding feed. Don't get discouraged if they don't come that day.


• It's fine to talk gently, but avoid sudden movements. Be patient. One of the braver birds will eventually take a piece from your hand. It may even hop onto your fingers and will, hopefully, be rewarded with a nice treat. Soon others also will come.


• Refill the feeder when you are done.
• This tip was added by me: choose one feeder to do this on so you don't confuse your tamed birds. Do it every day because your hand may be a calm place where shyer Robins or Nuthatches can get away from the aggressive Greenfinches and Starlings. 

I got this great advice from avianweb.com. You might be thinking where the hell will I make a feeding station? Put it in a place where cats cannot ambush the wee birds and in a place where there is cover near to fly to but where cats can't hide. Put it in a place where the birds can see the sky clearly. Don't place it under a tree for example. Now you might be thinking but what about that tree feeding station? That's okay because there will be lookouts all around the edges. Now with all the stuff in your wildlife garden, this is the sort of stuff you should be getting at dawn for half an hour like I did:

Wood Pigeon x2 mates
Robinx2 mates, multiple sightings
Collared Dove x2 mates courting 2 sightings
Greenfinch x1 male
Blackbird x2 mates
Chaffinch x3 2 male 1 female
Black-headed Gull x I lost count there was so many! all passage all but one winter one eclipse
Blue Titmouse flock approx. 20
Great Titmouse x2 mates
Starling x1 prob. flock nearby
Herring-gull x1 passage juv. 
House Sparrow flock approx. 10
Stock Dove x1 unknown ad. sex
Wren x1 unknown ad. sex
Dunnock x1 male
Carrion Crow x2 seperate passage
Rook x1 unknown ad. sex
Magpie x2 mates.