Who likes birds ?

😉

Chas, Thats nearly a case of, “You don’t have to say anything unless you wan’t to do so, but…………………………………………..

Jim.
Lincoln .7

You were doing 70 on the slip road…..?

What is it with Pigeons, especially Wood Pigeons. They just stand in the road begging to be run over. You don’t even have to swerve these days.
Got a Collar Dove on the motorway slip a few weeks ago. Covered the windscreen in white goo. Must have exploded when I hit it at 70.

At 2:30am today, whilst trying to sleep, I was kept awake by the calling of two owls and another unidentified bird chirping.
One of the owls was so close – and loud – I thought it might be sitting on the gutter just above my window.

with regards to cats… I’m not a huge fan, they’re so obnoxious!!!

So, in a former life, I guess my wife was a cat.:highly_amused:

I suspect that trying to confirm this with a saucer of milk and a piece of string would be highly inadvisable!

Back on avian topics – I’m very pleased to hear that these chaps are gradually returning to city areas back home.

Something I miss – along with walking through the bush with a couple of these chaps acting as ‘wingmen’.

And finally – one of the conservation projects my parents are working on involves reintroducing these chaps to pest-free habitats.

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

I wish there was a “Like” button here.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

:highly_amused::D
Jim
Lincoln ,7

So, in a former life, I guess my wife was a cat.:highly_amused:
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

So, in a former life, I guess my wife was a cat.:highly_amused:
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Jim,In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

R.R, AKA Baldrick, who has a cunning plan. I have nothing whatsoever against cats, however, you can never seem to get a cat to do what YOU want it to do, they have a mind of their own
however the two cats that I see in my garden seem to take great delight, in digging my Heather plants up, till I let the dogs out 😀

Jim.
Lincoln .7

the conclusion was that cats are not the main or even a major reason for the decline in small bird populations

Certainly downunder, one of the main predators of forest birds is actually rats. Another huge problem in NZ is possums, which not only kill the trees but also destroy nests and kill and eat chicks and eggs. There is a pretty extensive programme of laying/dropping 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) because it is the most efficient way of controlling them in inaccessible areas. The situation is more complicated in Aus because there’s more mammals about – hence Jim’s friend’s resistance.

There always seems to be a lot of angst when Tiddles comes in with something twitching these days. They’re cats. It’s what they do. Much like meat comes from supermarkets, people have forgotten that cats are apex predators and that was the whole point of domesticating them in the first place. If anything, while your average domestic mog* will catch something now and then I suspect that most of them don’t really try too hard – like Paul’s cat. The thing is, people tend to remember when they do, and c. 10m cats in the UK means a lot of corpses.

*There are, of course, the exceptions – of which our little cat was one. He was 4 months old when we got him but he’d clearly had a pretty tough start to life. We couldn’t have wished for a more gentle, well-behaved, and affectionate pet – but I have never seen a cat quite so utterly attuned to hunting as him. Everything was about hunting. The first time we let him outside, he spent 20 minutes trying to ‘catch’ the grass. Why? Because when he stepped on it, it moved! His crowning achievement was a fully-grown pigeon which was nearly bigger than he was.
I miss my little friend.

Jim,or anyone actually if you are in the North Cambridge area we have the Raptor Foundation a few miles away fro St Ives
http://www.raptorfoundation.org.uk/index.html

http://www.raptorfoundation.org.uk/findus.htm

Lincoln, Leicester isnt far from you, try a trip out to Birdland, not big but you get to see and hold parrots and macaws totally free and not in enclosures, they have seated areas in some of the enclosures for the smaller stuff too.. see

http://www.tropicalbirdland.co.uk/

check out the visitors gallery pages.

Magpies ,i see thousands of them everyday ,like feral foxes they are just taking over.

Comet. As regards to squirrels, in the 39 yrs I have lived here, I have never seen ONE, having said that, there are no Woods, or suitable habitat around here to “House” them, however, I know what you mean.Having said that, I had a Dunnock, build a nest in a small bush this year, for the 1st time ever, and the birds produced 3 eggs, all of which I am pleased to say hatched O.K.
Jiim.
Lincoln .7

Also good to shoot…..!!