BS: My tits have gone....

Subject: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:09 AM

But now I have a pair of pigeons nesting in my butterfly bush.

Well, I say nesting, I've seen stronger looking nests in computer cables...

They seem to have outsed my tits who haven't been seen at the feeder for a week or two. I choose to believe they're out catching insects but it could be the bird mix I put in the feeders isn't black sunflower seed.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:58 AM

Chickadees are like that. I don't know if your other tits are that stuck up. Mine turn their beaks up at the feeder when there are no sunflower seeds. When there IS black sunflower seed, they'll snatch it from the feeder even when I'm standing three feet away. Pigeons and squirrels don't seem to matter to them - those fellows are on the ground. The cat who sits under an ornamental cedar and watches (is this like cat porn?) doesn't even bother them.

Most of the birds (not the finches) tend to ignore the feeder when there are more natural types of eats available. I think your tits are probably fine, Liz. I think they're just roaming a bit but will eventually return.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:29 AM

Hey....I have two peckers. This is their second year with us

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: jacqui.c
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:22 AM

WE've got a pair of mallards inhabiting the large puddle in the back yard now.

We've also got a large flock of starlings, which Kendall is trying to reduce by the use of a pellet gun.......

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:17 AM

all the birds were knocking the moss off the roof for nests last week. I had a Great Tit outside my window - very bold little chaps aren't they?

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Bee
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:57 AM

I've been watching courting Mergansers for over two weeks now - gorgeous big ducks. Kitty sits on the shore and watches with great interest, but they are bigger than he is and never come ashore. I did see a dozen or so of them swim lazily to within a metre of shore to take a good look at him one morning - they seemed unimpressed with his fluffed tail and crouching posture.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:41 PM

It's been mostly just the same old boring crows around here day after day, squawking in their raucous fashion.

However, I was utterly transfixed this morning when what should I see but a pair of Northern Stuffed Grouse, followed by a flight of Milligan's Twaddlers and a Maundering Fitch!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: GUEST,Cruz
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:44 PM

Sad to say Ms. Lizzie, but that is to be expected with age and gravity and the gravity of the condition is very grave indeed.

There are ways to bring your tits back into view and uplift this thread to the peaks of perfection...














Stuff your feeder with some fat and some black sunflower seeds, darn it!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Schantieman
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:55 PM

A great tit is feeding on whatever is crawling about on the copious pear blossom just outside my window as I type. Last night in Portsmouth I saw a green woodpecker (which looked very yellow) in flight, in the middle of a Naval base! Obviously in a hurry to avoid having to sell his story.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:34 PM

I used to have a bird table - then the sparrow hawks messed it up. they used to swoop down and sit on the lawn eating the little birds, not a very nice sight.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:58 PM

An immature Swainson's hawk gave the sparrows a scare a few weeks back at my bird feeder. He perched on top of the shepherd's crook that holds the feeder, perhaps hoping that the little birds would throw themselves at his feet. Instead, all of them hovered below the surface inside a huge rosemary bush and weren't heard to make a peep until long after he left.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 04:06 PM

A bird table is just like a market stall to hawks... they hover just out of eyesight and pick out which little fluttering morsel they're going to nibble on today... get a bird table with a roof and it makes it a lot harder for hawks and other raptors to get at them.

The pigeon sat tight, even though I was but 3 feet beneath it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Mickey191
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:09 PM

LTS, I read the thread title and immediately thought, "I must comfort her on her loss." Now I find you are speaking of birds--I'm so very glad. A couple of years ago I posted "I'm now a titless wonder!" Only I wasn't talking about birds! And guess what? They don't grow back! Darn!!!

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: GUEST,Peter Woodruff
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:35 PM

We still have leaf-footed bugs at the windows and it's snowing out. We also have crows picking over the compost.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 04:45 AM

Thank you Mickey191 - after having three sorts of tits for so long, I'm devastated to find I have none at all hanging from my nut pecker... I think the pigeons are unnerving them by nesting in what was formerly their nest site - the pigeons are like the big, rich Lottery winners who build a tasteless manorhouse next door to the little cottage and look right into their windows.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 05:15 AM

So sorry to hear you have lost your tits Liz...they have become something of a National Institution. Replaced by pigeons which are classed as vermin so they sure aint the lottery winners.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 05:17 AM

But at least they are nice, proper wood pigeons, not the deformed and scabby, disease-ridden flying rats you get in the rest of London!

Urban pigeons carry more fatal diseases than the average sewer rat. I've seen pigeons eat vomit off the streets... never seen a rat do that. I hate pigeons.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Flash Company
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 09:36 AM

Shouldn't worry too much about the tits, Liz, they'll be back.
I had the same problem last year with wrens, none to be seen. This year the noisy little buggers are waking me at four in the morning.
There is one outside busting his lungs as I write.

FC

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:51 PM

You're right... I was pottering around the garden this afternoon and found my pair of blue ones peeting in the pittisporum. The pigeon nest resembles nothing more than a pile of badly arranged twigs and could never hold an egg, let alone an active youngster, so it may just be a 'resting' nest... sort of TraveLodge for pigeons... although it looks more like the Bates Motel sort of thing!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:18 PM

That's how wood pigeons build their nests. I've no idea how any of them manage to breed successfully, the ones in my garden lost their eggs through the holes in the nest.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:46 PM

Looks like the kitties are in for a treat soon then!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 03:17 AM

Sorry about your tits. Liz!

Perhaps I could cheer you up with the rainbow lorikeets who were feasting on the Grevillea blossoms outside the room where I was staying while teaching mapping last week. Or the kookaburras that sat on the mast over the verandah, begging bits of sausage for breakfast. They had it all over the magpies in the success stakes but I preferred the magpies' carolling; liquid song!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 05:33 AM

Our tits are knocking. Trying to drill holes in the soffits or barge board, it sounds like.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 07:43 AM

"magpies' carolling liquid song!"

Either you are being facetious or your magpies are in no way related to ours - bit like American and European robins.

Subject: RE: BS: My tits have gone....
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 06:18 PM

Topsie, there have been postings elsewhere on Mudcat (some in Liz' earlier thread about her tits) detailing the differences between what northern hemisphereans call magpies and what Australians call magpies. You're right; ours are different from yours. If I had the wit to do it I'd try to find a link so you could hear but I've not yet mastered the technique.

Some years ago I conducted an informal survey asking people,
"What would be the first sound that came to mind if I said the word "Australia" to you?"

Overwhelmingly the response was "Magpies in the morning." Some mentioned bellbirds, some kookaburras and some gave the well known Australian crow call. Most of these people were from SE Oz. One, a West Australian, said "Red sand." Understandable, if you're been there.

Cheers, Rowan