Two Hungry Baby Robins

Feeding Wild Birds

We often see robins in the garden after feeding the wild birds and this year we were lucky enough to have a robin nesting in the garden. 

When the chicks arrived they were just so cute. We had great fun watching them, they were a joy to see and very comical too. 

My partner managed to take this short video.

The mother robin had just fed one chick and then another chick showed up and wanted feeding. The mother didn't know which chick to feed next and ended up feeding the same chick twice and the other went without. The mother robin looks very confused and harassed!

Hummingbirds

Feeding Wild Birds

Just came across this lovely video showing baby Humming Birds leaving the nest

Enjoy!

Feeding Wild Birds

Nature and wild life are my passion and one great pleasure for me is feeding wild birds in my garden.

The numbers of many wild birds are now dwindling and many are in danger of becoming extinct so every little that we can do to help them survive is good. Feeding wild birds especially through the harsh winter months when natural food is scarce will go a long way to helping them.

Feeding wild birds takes such little effort and need not cost a lot. Besides crumbed up bread there are many other types of food and leftovers from your kitchen that you can feed to garden birds.

Cake crumbs, uncooked porridge oats, cooked potatoes (unsalted), cooked rice (unsalted), grated cheese, chopped bananas and apples cut in half are just some examples.

In the breeding season when the garden birds have young chicks to feed one of their favourite foods is mealworms. Mealworms are very nutritious for wild birds and if you don't like the thought of handling live mealworms you can always buy the dried variety from your bird food supplier.

Feeding wild birds is a win, win situation. The birds get much needed food that helps them to thrive and survive and we receive joy, beauty and the great pleasure of their company in our gardens.

The world would be such a dull place without our beautiful colorful wild garden birds.

 

 

Starlings: Feathers and moulting

I love feeding wild birds in my garden, we have a great variety of different species and one of my favourites are the Starlings.  

We have a family of Starlings that come to the garden to feed and their antics are very amusing as they strut around and squabble amongst themselves over the food. But I have often wondered why they all look so different from each other.  I guessed it was because some of them were youngsters and others adult birds.

I come across this interesting article that explains all about why the Starlings can sometimes look so different from each other:  

When young starlings leave the nest, they're brown all over.

You've probably seen them chasing and pestering their hard-pressed parents, and heard them squawking for food.

Because starlings sometimes have two broods in one breeding season, you'll see starlings of different ages and varying appearances.

You can read the article here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/s/starling/feathers.aspx

Bird of the Week: Red-Breasted Nuthatch

Feeding Wild Birds

This is an interesting article about the red-breasted nuthatch.

This week's featured bird, the red-breasted nuthatch, is a tiny bundle of energy that happily - and hungrily - visits backyard feeders for suet, peanut butter, seeds and peanuts. They often forage with other similarly hyperactive birds, including kinglets and chickadees, but with their rich red underparts and bold black-and-white head, these nuthatches are hard to miss.

http://birding.about.com/b/2010/09/16/bird-of-the-week-red-breasted-nuthatch.htm