Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
Lovely. A few years ago I notice a blackbird nesting in our garden hedge and decided to run a golfball sized CCTV camera to it so we could record and view the footage of the eggs hatching etc. It was fascinating to watch and in the end 4 chicks hatched but sadly they started to disappear. Normally predators like magpies and squirrels would take the whole lot so we knew something odd was happening and after reviewing lots of footage we discovered that a male was taking the nestlings out of the nest and dumping them.
On another occasion I discovered some wrens had nested in the same hedge when I heard the feint call of several young birds coming from it one afternoon. I went to have a look and could hear them but not see anything at first. Then, with my head buried in the thick hedge, I spotted these tiny fledglings amongst all the woody stems and the male adult started creating a right old fuss trying to frighten me away. He was only about the size of my little finger but very feisty!!  |
Ah the male Blackbird might have realised that there was something wrong with those chicks so dumped them to give the healthier ones more of a chance. Less mouths to feed and all that.
The goldies tend to come into the garden in singles or a pair at a time during the nesting season but you get a good flock of them once the last lot of young have hatched. I think there are 3-4 pairs visiting my garden but it's not unusual to see between 10 and 20 at a time after the nesting season has finished. They fight over the sunflower hearts so I've just bought another feeder for them with 4 ports.
Ours will eat pretty much anything you put out though:
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