Time to get tough

It has been suggested that locating a plastic eagle owl near the Bloody hawks nest may be illegal so of course I will not be doing that . However someone needs to do something. So many folk talk about the decline in the number of songbirds, who has seen a thrush lately?

The UK Raptor Working Group reported in 1999 that there were 34,700 breeding pairs of sparrowhawks and it was generally agreed that there were probably the same number of singles. Each sparrowhawk devours three songbirds a day.


The total number of songbirds killed each year is in excess of 113 million. If the RSPB is serious about trying to stop the songbird decline, instead of blaming farmers and cat owners, it should allow a controlled reduction in the number of sparrowhawks too.

The sparrowhawk eats its prey alive, sliver by sliver until a vital organ is devoured. It pins the prey bird down and strips the feathers and then the skin until it then tears into the flesh to reache the vital organs . It can take up to 20 minutes for a larger bird to die, one of my doves for instance. By encouraging the use of bird tables among its members, all the RSPB is doing is to produce a slaughtering slab for the sparrowhawk.

Good Friday....I hope!

Well, the time came to make the decision about taking the net off and letting the doos fly free again. The new bunch had been homed for 16 weeks and as my pigeon pals have told me Mrs Sparrowhawk should be on her eggs I went for it. The weather conditions were good, no wind, no rain and not too cold or hot for that matter.

Carmen and Murray helped with the release and we watched in wonder as four of the doves headed skywards, did two or three circuits and settled onto the house roof. The new kids, Fugly and Didgeree remained in the cote but the picture above shows them after an hour or so being brave enough to venture to the wood at the top of the homing cage.

Carmen and I then watched in wonder as not FIVE minutes after the release the sparrowhawk flew past, over the cottages behind us and into the trees. We had always suspected that the nest was close but 500 yards away is taking the Mickey somewhat. However Carmen and I have identified the nest and it is a text book hawk built des res (McDoonalds in the vicinity) . It is in a fairly substantial climbable tree so I am going to get someone, ( not me) to climb the tree and affix my giant plastic eagle owl close to the nest in the hope that it will deter the hawk. Hopefully the hawks will leave Moonzie and relocate, relocate, relocate.PLEASE.

On the baby doo front we now have Fugly and Didgeree who are 6 weeks, Pipsqueak who is 2 weeks, Cocka ( Doodle Doo....named by Stuart) who is about a week and she/he may even have a sibling that we do not know about. There has been a lot of bonking before and since the release and two other doos are nest building in the cote so we could have even more eggs on the way.

Fingers crossed that all the doos have a very happy Easter and that none of them get eaten yet! It will be a shame if they do but I suppose going on last years events we had four eaten by the dog next door who is now more disciplined, and two by the hawk. So 50% of my second flock were eaten by a raptor and as I now have 9 birds even allowing for collateral damage we should get to the end of the year with some birds in hand and you know what they say about birds in the hand! If my girl doos have babies at this rate all summer and none get eaten I could, by my reckoning and poor maths, have in excess of twenty doos, I will have run out of smart names, the windows will be covered in doo poo and I may even be inviting the hawk to Come Dine with Me.

Happy Easter!

New pictures of Fugly..not so Ugly any more!

Now come on turn around for the camera!! Now you know exactly where all the guano comes from!

Notice how the beak is still much too big for the body!

This is Fugly who is getting bolder by the day, in fact I thought he/she was going to come out and fly today.

I had a look in at the new baby today, named Pipsqueak, she is all yellow and fluffy and is laying next to another as yet unhatched egg. Mum is firmly plonked over the top of her.

And now we are Three!

Fugly and Didgeree this morning, four weeks old today.

When I was out feeding the doves this morning I noticed a broken shell in Maisonette Number two and a little while ago saw the mother dove remove the shell from the nest box and dump it in the corner of the run so I think we can safely assume we now have at least one new baby.

Fugly and Didgeree are getting very bold and are coming further out of the nest hole every day, the feeding rate by Dad is also increasing but of course if he is the Dad of the new doos he will soon be leaving these two and feeding his new brood, poor old Mum will be off sitting on some more new babies and so the cycle continues.

More Pics to click on to get bigger

The enclosed run, a bit messy, the small white box in the corner is in case Fugly or Didgeree Doo come down and cannot get up again.

Babies in poo!

The lower maisonette floor with two doves on eggs

Update on Fugly and her brother

This is the latest ( albeit not very good) picture of the two doo babies. They have grown at a terrific rate and look like real doves now, the pile of guano they are sitting in makes for great insulation or so I am told! The babies are approximately three and a half weeks old now.

The weather has turned very cold again after our wonderful weather of last week when we hit 16.5 degrees one day, almost better than some of our summer days. I was even out in a t shirt showing off my post St Lucia suntan.

The babies are now being fed by the dad dove , Mum is now on a second clutch of eggs. They get fed at very regular intervals and you know it is happening as the father perches at the door and throws up into the babies mouths. He feeds them what is called Pigeon/Dove Milk which is part digested grains and seeds. This seems to happen every few hours so no wonder the babies have grown, they doubled their birth weight in the first 48 hours although continued to look like feathered scrotums for some time after that!

Two more doves are on eggs and we should have our next lot of babies any day now if all has gone well with the incubation. They have been laid in the lower house of the dove cote so it will be a lot easier to get to see these ones. There is still a lot of courting going on and even more mess than before. I am in a bit of a dilemma about when to release them as they have now been under the net being homed for 13 weeks, however the Bloody Sparrowhawk is still around but I am reliably informed by my pigeon Pals that she will be in the nest very soon and once that happens she will be out of action for a while. The male bird does the hunting and feeding at this point and as he is slower and lighter than her is unable to take larger birds so we should be safe for a while at least. I also have a worry that as Ben and Jerry and Holly and Ivy were older birds when they arrived that they might be 'homed' to Duncan in Glenrothes and head home once liberated. It seems that after they have reared babies this is far less likely to occur but I have heard that a dominant cock may well lead his whole flock home, including the new ones. Bully and Lily should remain here as they were very young unflown birds when I got them last year. In fact they arrived with me on the 5th May at 7 weeks old last year which means that this weekend is their first birthday!

I am trying new anti hawk methods of deterrent this year, I still have the big plastic Eagle Owl and have just ordered some Mylar Repelling tape which when hung artistically around the area will emit a reverberation that hawks dislike plus as it is holographic, the reflection upsets the birds. I have another few ideas up my sleeves too. I was delighted to see a dead hawk on the road recently too which means one less to eat my gourmet doves.

The chickens have settled down very well without the other four and we get three or four eggs most days which is plenty for our needs. The garden is fairly blooming with some wonderful spring flowers and apart from the fact that the weather is bitter all is well with the world.

BABIES!

Look what arrived the other day!! I think he/she actually arrived along with his/her sibling about a week ago but as Mum Doo was firmly ensconced on top of them we have only just discovered them! These are two new doo babies, the first named Didgery Doo Too and the second Fugly!

They will eventually look like lovely elegant white fantails but at the moment they are the ugliest babies I have ever seen. We also have another dove sitting on two more eggs so my fears that we would be unable to rear any after all the disasters of before were totally unfounded.

Hopefully none of these will fall to the ground overnight although this one is very feisty, he took great exception to Murray's camera being poked into the nesting box. The book says that the parents will feed them for four weeks or so, I have no idea how old these are apart from older than a week and maybe younger than two!

Lots and lots of bonking going on in the dove cote enclosure so perhaps even more eggs on the way.

Other than that chickens, kids and me are all doing well after the excesses of Sam and Niccis engagement party last weekend. We had a great time, the venue was superb, the food wonderful and almost all the guests well behaved. Nicci and Sam looked like a real couple in amazing finery and Herb and I were very proud parents yet again.