On 10/3/08 18:58, in article
, "Judith
in France" wrote:

snip
At least you are all safe and hopefully the greenhouses are still
intact. You paint a picture of a comfortable, warm home. BTW You
sent me your new email addy some time ago, I lost it!!!!

Judith

I'll re-send it. Greenhouses okay so far! We had a lull for a couple of
hours and now it seems to be starting up again.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 11/3/08 02:39, in article , "Anne
Jackson" wrote:

The message from Eddy contains
these words:
BAC wrote:
However, once the cold season is out of the way and there
is no food aplenty in the countryside around here we stop the peanuts,
fatballs, and seeds.

Well done.

Thanks. I have to admit though, that the expense of bird food is part
of the reason for stopping the feeding once ice & cold are gone. To
give you an example of what it is like round here, in this part of
Shropshire where there are lots of woods: I put out three fat balls last
night and this evening they have been completely consumed. I put them
inside a seed-feeder too, so none breaks off and falls to the ground,
i.e. I make them work for it! But in 3 in 24 hours! As for the
seed-feeder, it's a tall one, and it is emptied within 12 hours!

I do charity, but not excessively! :-)

So when the eggs hatch the parent birds that have come to rely on
your feeders for food find that there is none available...and there's
no fruit or seeds available until the autumn?

Perhaps you'd be better not to put food in your garden at all?


http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpin...whentofeed.asp

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

Anne Jackson wrote:
I do charity, but not excessively! :-)

So when the eggs hatch the parent birds that have come to rely on
your feeders for food find that there is none available...and there's
no fruit or seeds available until the autumn?

No, we do extend into spring for the sake of the young ones. A bit
dicey though because they're naturally naive with regard to our two fine
athletic cats! Another "difficulty" in spring is watching the
woodpeckers hog the feeders for their grossly fat young ones clinging to
the trunks of nearby trees, so that other birds find it difficult to get
a "look in"!

Eddy.

Sacha wrote:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpin...whentofeed.asp

Sacha, most households in this country put NOTHING out for birds EVER,
so we feel we are doing quite a bit by providing for roughly 7 months of
the year. Added to this is the fact that we are living in verdant
sparsely-populated countryside which is blessed with abundant natural
food sources. And added to that is the fact that most of those who have
chosen to live in this "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" adore birds
and so there is always a good number of households putting out
take-aways for the birdies! Believe me, they ain't going wanting round
here! :-)

Eddy.

On 11/3/08 12:41, in article ,
"Eddy" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpin...whentofeed.asp

Sacha, most households in this country put NOTHING out for birds EVER,
so we feel we are doing quite a bit by providing for roughly 7 months of
the year. Added to this is the fact that we are living in verdant
sparsely-populated countryside which is blessed with abundant natural
food sources. And added to that is the fact that most of those who have
chosen to live in this "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" adore birds
and so there is always a good number of households putting out
take-aways for the birdies! Believe me, they ain't going wanting round
here! :-)

Eddy.

Do chuck out some sultanas occasionally, though. Quite apart from anything
else, it's so sweet to see the birds pouncing on them eagerly. Ray tells me
that's how poachers lure pheasants and certainly, I've seen them go quite
dipsy over a handful of sultanas!
We get huge bags of bird seed from a feed & grain merchant and I think it's
quite a bit cheaper than going to e.g. a pet store.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

Sacha wrote:
Do chuck out some sultanas occasionally, though. Quite apart from anything
else, it's so sweet to see the birds pouncing on them eagerly. Ray tells me
that's how poachers lure pheasants and certainly, I've seen them go quite
dipsy over a handful of sultanas!

Ah, thanks for this, Sacha! Sultanas, eh? We used to feed them corn
but it didn't help when I came to take aim - during the pheasant season,
of course! Now, if sultanas make them "go quite dipsy", then sultanas
could be the aid I clearly need!

Hee, hee, hee!

Eddy.

"Eddy" wrote in message
...
Sacha wrote:
Do chuck out some sultanas occasionally, though. Quite apart from
anything
else, it's so sweet to see the birds pouncing on them eagerly. Ray tells
me
that's how poachers lure pheasants and certainly, I've seen them go quite
dipsy over a handful of sultanas!

Ah, thanks for this, Sacha! Sultanas, eh? We used to feed them corn
but it didn't help when I came to take aim - during the pheasant season,
of course! Now, if sultanas make them "go quite dipsy", then sultanas
could be the aid I clearly need!

Hee, hee, hee!

Eddy.


If you have dogs, be careful when 'chucking out' sultanas, because grapes,
raisins and sultanas are toxic to dogs (but not to squirrels).

On Mar 7, 12:53 pm, Martin Pentreath
wrote:
I am now thouroughly fed up with the squirrels in my garden stealing
nuts from the bird feeder. I've tried various locations, including
suspending it from a 15' length of wire strung horizontally from one
wall to another. This morning they've finally learnt how to shimmy
along the wire.

I've just looked at various gimicky contraptions online, but they all
seem to have weaknesses. The yanks have an electric one which spins
when the little blighters get onto it and throws them off at a tangent
- the problem seems to be that in spinning it also sprays seeds all
over the place so that they can just eat from the ground.

I think simple must be better, so I'm more attracted to the type that
have an outer cage with holes too small for squirrels to get in, eghttp://url2it.com/egf

Anyone got any comments on this type? Failing this I'm considering
putting 240v through the bloody thing.

Cheers!

Martin

The ones with an outer cage work (dad's got one), but my cheaper
option is to slip the plastic cover from a used up spindle of CDs or
DVDs through the hanging wire over the top of the feeder (or any
similar piece of wide, smooth plastic) and this freaks out the
squirrels, as it's slippery and moves about and they find it really
hard to creep around, so they usually fall off and get fed up, but
obviously the feeder needs to hang well away from anywhere that these
flying rats can leap from and onto it directly, regards dreschrode