We have had Blackbirds nesting in our Honeysuckle outside the front of the house for the last few years.

This year however not sure what is going on because I have three chicks dead on the pathway all a reasonable size :(

Haven't heard any cuckoo sounds ;) coming from the Honeysuckle so any ideas ? :)

Lucy
xx

Aww poor chicks :( No advice sorry just wanted to symphathise with the chicks :(

Maybe got wet and died of cold - mother evicted them to lay another clutch ????

Daisy

Yes could be an explanation but the nest is very well protected by about a good metre of branches and leaves etc so it would have been quite dry and also protected from the wind I would have thought

Hmm - if it was a magpie etc they would have been eaten. Strange :(

Daisy

I thought cats but came to the same conclusion as they would have eaten the chicks

we have had lots of birds....everything from sparrows to woodies, falling out of their nests this year, mainly due to careless parenting, por nest building skills and some strong winds.

:rolleyes: society today!

Our neighbour has a very big (too big) conifer in his front garden that our sitting room looks straight onto.  A couple of weeks ago I saw a Magpie and a Crow taking turns in dipping into the conifer.  I thought they were dismantling an old nest only to realise that they were killing and eating fledglings.  I found part of a wing in one of my shrubs

I came face to face with a magpie with a darling little wren in its beak once :(  Nature I suppose, but I hate them :rolleyes:

I saw a cute little bird collecting all the dog hairs from my patio.
I'd brushed the girls out at the weekend.

Must make mental note to do some more grooming to provide insulating fluff
for them :)
It was a real ahh factor.

Well have been keeping an eye out for Ma and Pa and no signs of them :( They always enter the bush via our window side so from being very busy to nothing is very sad :(

I hope they have just gone away for a bit and will be back raring to go again in a few days :)

Very strange, due to them not being eaten it does sound as though they have fallen from the nest for some reason, we have had some terrible rain, even though trees and bushes are quite well insulated it is possible the nest had got really wet and wind blown even from inside the tree/bush, it seems the most likely solution.

I agree about the Magpies, I always shoo them away, used to like them until I realised why they were visiting so much, I guess they are needed to keep the bird population in check, but not in my garden.

Does the bird population need to be kept in check?  Many of our native birds are in decline and the Magpie doesn't discriminate.  Now Magpies are protected their numbers are increasing but there's nothing to keep them in check.  I can't remember even seeing Magpies when I was a child but around here there are lots but I expect that's the case all over the country.  I was pleased to see birds nesting in the conifer although couldn't quite make out what birds they were, think they might have been a finch of some type.

Larger chicks of some breeds will push out the smaller siblings if food is short but I can't see that being the reason this time.

BTW does anyone know what type of bird I saw a few weeks ago?  It's colouring was quite bland, pale fawn under and not much darker upper and it was a little bigger than say a Robin.  It had a flitting type of movement but it was most noticeable because it had bright orange legs and feet.  Never seen one before and couldn't find it on the internet.

It's not just a Dunnock ??

Daisy

Dunnock looks similar but the one I saw had bright orange legs, they really stood out they were such a strong colour. Perhaps it had brightened it's legs up for the mating season? :D

Is the Magpie protected really really???

That would be news to quite a few folk around here

Jo

Do you know what?  I really thought they were protected, but your comment made me check and I'm wrong, WRONG! Can you believe it? :P :D

It is illegal to disturb any nesting wild bird, there are no exceptions to this law

There are exclusions for the taking & killing of some wild birds that are"pest"species which includes the magpie, but you cannot destroy any active nests

Magpies and crows seem to be the main bird species around here, though we have a couple of dumb collared doves, and blackbirds and wagtails fairly often. 

did have one of the tit family fly into the house by accident and had a job to catch to release it, but that was about 10 years ago.

Flocks of Starlings are a problem in town in the Autumn.

It is a shame about the Magpies as they are very attractive.

Yes, magpies and jays are both beautiful birds, but killers.

One of our dogs picked a jay accidentally one day, and it dug its sharp talons deep into her nostrils, and was all for pecking her eyes out.   I had a job to prise it off

A song bird wouldn't stand a chance.

Jo

Does that law include accidental disturbances?  I decided to start hacking away at my conifer yesterday (don't like it, planned to hack it right down then work on the stump later), got about halfway through when I spotted a blackbird nest next to the trunk with 2 eggs in it.

Fortunately mama has come back and is incubating again :) I've put a couple of chopped branches back in as well to give her more shelter, li=uckily I didn't take too much off around her as she's nested on the side hardest to get to :p Needless to say, I'm leaving it for a while!

Accidental disturbance is covered & in a case like yours it would be ok. My neighbours are waiting to lop their Leylandii down, but are waiting until at least june to do it

Most Arborists won't do any serious tree work where there are nesting birds except emergency work

Birds around me get Rough Collie fur lined nests, K, nicer than Boxer fur! :D

M.

Our local birds have the height of luxury too...Newfoundland fur lined nests :)  Bucket loads of the stuff :rolleyes: can you tell that she's in full coat-blow at the minute? :D

That's only your opinion M, birds might prefer Boxer fur :D
Anyhow my girls fur is nice and soft helped by the EPO they get :D
They also have different colours too, brindle, red or white, so a lovely choice for them :D

Oooh even had a Magpie on the bird feeder at work today!
Constantly having to shoo 'tree rats' off the feeders, my office is a first floor office.
Cheeky little blighters even knock on the windows for nuts
Beautiful surroundings, get all the 'tit' varieties, nut hatches, even the spotted woodpeckers,
even had a jay trying to get at the nuts too :)
Also had the bloomin noisy Canadian Geese on the lawns, mind you quite cute they had all their
babies with them, one brood was 13 strong and quite big.
Saddest bit few days ago we saw pair of Swans with 8 baby, baby cygnets then a few days later down to 3 :(

Lovley creamy grey fur in nests around here.

We regularly get our blackbird nest plundered by local magpies :( although occasionally they do manage to bring a youngster up safely. Saw one a few years ago on our garden gate, had obviously been well hidden and was bythen a fine young bird but still staying near the parents.

Our birds are very strong in protecting their nest but sometimes have little chance against magpies and once the fledglings are on the ground, cats.

We saved a fledgling  a couple of years ago, it had fallen from the nest, and we fed it by syringe and it not only started to gape at us for food but was also being fed by its parents who had found it. Maybe we should have put it in a box or soemthing but our view was that the parents would find it which they did. However just one day later next door's cat found it.

Lindsay
x