Tip, cheap way to keep Black and Green fly at bay.

[Pun]

The best pest control is natures, the lady birds if you find any in a clean part of your garden and you can manage to handle them to an infestered part they,ll do the trick for you,

as will feeding the birds throughtout the winter, if you feep the feeding tray going in the hot weather (a shallow dish of water on it) the birds tend to visit a safe area to feed and drink and eat any insect around,

Or used washing up water (liquid soap only) watered over the infected plants will help keep the insects under control, but only use this method in  time of day or evening when no direct sun is on the plants.

Its a cheap way and you,d only pull the plug on the water anyway so why not use it.[B]

[Rozmum]

That's a great tip.  Haven't been too bothered by either black or green fly this year for some reason (Fingers crossed and touching wood!) but we do seem to have an unusual number of ladybirds so that's probably why.  Also an amazing number of sparrows!!  I wonder if that's got anything to do with it???

[Pun]

HI,

we started feeding the birds back in the U.K. years ago during one bad winter after reading a bit in the local paper about how much birds needed to eat daily just to get through the night,

At this time of my life I,d had my front hedge jumped on because it was cut weekly and 3feet high and good for the yobs to make flat,

I,d complained to the local police only to be told the had better things  to do.

   I had had verious plants taken out of the front garden and found crushed in the middle of the road,

so I thought I,d just have a very basic lawn and thats when I thought of a bird feeder high in a tree,

after a short while the birds came daily, pea nuts being the favourit,

spring arrived and I had the chance to find out more ref the birds needs, plus my garden prep,

the songs from the black bird was just pure music to the ear, and then the chicks tweet tweet when  the parents fed them,

and the "L" plated little ones learning to fly and crash,

and my lessons hadnt finished ref birds, I,d offten find a fluffed up little thing on my lawn tired out after a lesson from mum and dad,

but I soon learnt to leave them there, mum wasnt far away to help sort little one out. and the same little ones need feeding after this eppic flying and crash landing lesson, hence the grubs, black fly, etc etc .

[Gastines]

Yes,a little effort for a great return.At the moment we have dozens of baby sparrows and chaffinches and my wife is putting the food nearer and nearer to the kitchen window sill. We have had a baby robin lose it's way and end up on the landing.I had to catch it in a fishing net but it survived the experience.One odd thing ,our regular 9 bluetits have disappeared completely, having been here all winter and if no food was out they would sit on the window bars and tap on the window.Small pleasures.

[Pun]

Hi gastines,

Areally heart warming reply from you,

When we first bought this house in france some 5 years ago we found a gap that let house martins make a nest in our lounge,

every time we put the .T.V. on 5 little heads would appear and watch T.V.

isnt nature a nice thing /

HAPPY GARDENING TO YOU.

[chris pp]

I do hope that you won't take this the wrong way, but you really shouldn't be feeding birds at this time of year, all bird feeding should cease in April at the latest, I know that it may seem like a nice thing to do, but it's not really fair to the birds who need to work a bit and eat what's naturally available.

I think that your house martins may have been swallows Pun, house martins make their nest on the wall outside and swallows make their nest inside a building up against a beam or something similar, what's happened to them now, can they still find somewhere at your place to nest??

Chris

 

[andyh4]

We'll agree to differ on this one Chris.  There is much debate on whether you should only feed in winter and no clear rights or wrongs - but plenty of good arguements in both camps.

 

The opposing view to Chris's (which has merit) is that if you decide (and I do) to destroy the balance of nature by feeding in Winter, you are creating an artificial environment that has to be sustained.*  This is achieved by feeding all year round, although you can, perhaps should, reduce the levels of feeding through the summer to encouarge natural foraging**.  However, unless you are putting kilos of food out per week, your bird population will be doing what comes naturally anyway.

 

*April is the worst time of year to stop feeding since you deprive the seed eaters of a major source of sustenance at a time when there are no fresh seeds available in nature and when the insect population is barely beginning to revive after winter.

 

** My own observations are that the rate at which food is taken drops from about late May/mid June anyway as natural food sources become more plentiful.  I suspect that birds are no less gourmet than humans and, given the choice of fresh new seed, or some manky sunflower that has been in a plastic bag for 6 months, will prefer nature's freshest.

[Pun]

Hi chris,

the nest is now vacant and I will remove it due to the fact that we needed to have a window open 24hrs to enable the birds to feed ect,

the only reason they used this space was that the house we bought was empty for years and the birds got in then through a gap in the wall above a beam we didnt know was there, but when we had centrial heating put in this gap was filled, hence a new entrance was needed,

But again due to the modern ways of life even in this part of france it a must to secure your property when your not at home,

ref the feeding, we use up the last of the nuts rather than leave them to go off and its the wood-peckers that do most of the eating.

[chris pp]

I take your points on board Andy and I know that it's something of a talking point in general, but what I would prefer people to do is spend a little more time and thought about habitat considerations, including maintaining a chemical free garden which would be of real benefit to birds (and other wildlife, of course). Obviously I would like people to get enjoyment from the wild world around them, but we must put the creatures needs in front of our human desires. The matter of seed eaters isn't straightforward and there are very few (if any) strict seed eaters that over winter in France and there should be more than enough insects, eggs and grubs to sustain them in April, historically this has been the case, although I accept that the landscape is changing, and I shouldn't think we'll fall out over it.

Sad about the swallows, not knocking you Pun, you bought a house to renovate, that's normal. What's sad is that although swallows are still reasonably numerous, they are suffering a drastic population decline in France which may not be noticeable to "the man in the street". The main factor is a loss of nesting sites, followed by a reduction in insect numbers due to pesticides.

Yes, nature is wonderful (but struggling).

Chris

[Tony F Dordogne]

This year we hard pruned the vine which covers the 'pergola' immediately outside our front door.

Last year we had greenfinches nesting in it.  This year we have 2 blackbirds nests, one just a metre from our front door.

Wonderful to watch.

[Russethouse]

The best thing we did for the wildlife was to build a small pond, it has paddle stones placed so that there is access in & out, in case a hedgehog fell in for example, and the birds use these to paddle, bathe and drink.

Because we have cleared a lot of overgrown stuff from the garden we make extra effort with the birds and feed them year round but much less in the summer. Although we have the pond, we still keep the birdbath topped up and the smaller birds love it.

[andyh4]

We won't fall out Chris -as I said, just agree to disagree.  Regards providing habitat, I agree totally, but this is much easier to do with 18 ares in France than with less than 100m² in Germany (where we currently over-winter) and in the middle of a built up area.