baby birds

[watervole]

Been gardening this afternoon, accompanied by two juvenile blackbirds whom I have christened Tweedledum and Tweedledee. they're really amazingly tame and will happily come to within 6 feet of me while I'm working.  The parents are equally unbothered by my presence.  I think they've decided to rear their youngsters in our garden because we have lots of cover.  Not only do we have lots of places for the youngsters to hide, but we also have compost and mulch over a lot of soil.  If there's one thing I've realised over the last couple of years, it is that blackbirds love rooting through layers of stuff on the ground.  I guess there must be a lot of insects and invertebrates that live in leaf litter and compost.

There's also a pair of blackbirds (possibly the same set of parents) building a nest in the wisteria.  Apparently, blackbirds build one nest while rearing the previous youngsters -- I imagine it reduces problems with parasites if they change nest between broods.

So, if you want a lot of birds in your garden, my tip is to have lots of climbing plants and lots of compost on your soil.  Bird tables are okay, but they won't attract the ground-feeding birds.  You don't even need to dig the compost in.  Just leaving it as a layer on the surface is fine.  The birds can root through it and eventually the worms will pull it down to nourish the soil.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, blackbirds I know very well. There have been resident in our garden since we settled there(24 years ago)! Surprisingly, our blackbirds prefer a flat lawn. They just WALK on it, collecting the insects, and even our comcat Tygrosek doesn´t bother them. He tried to attack only once - they retaliated in unison and the cat was so frightened that he fled. They have had a truce since then. The birds live in a big lime tree next to our house and their morning song is beauuuuuuuuuutiful!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Our blackbirds like the lawn as well, but since we started using mulch, they spend less time on the lawn and more time in the flowerbeds.