For the birds

[UncommonTruth]

 

 

An idea for someone who loves both yarn, and birds, and maybe doesn't want to pick the leftovers out of their bushes this year :matte-motes-smitten:

 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

;-).

[bebejee]

Thats sweet, will try it out.

[ZoeTick]

I tried using that today and, in conjunction with a shotgun, look forward to tomorrow's dawn chorus being several decibels down on this morning's.

And I hope that it continues to attract victims.

[UncommonTruth]

 o_O I guess it's multi purpose yarn

[DejaHo]

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UncommonTruth wrote:

 o_O I guess it's multi purpose yarn

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Imagine that.  Yarn for lolbirds!   Suddenly the chronic lolcat lovers find that they are in denial. Wonderful. 

[DejaHo]

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ZoeTick wrote:

I tried using that today and,

in conjunction with a shotgun, look forward to tomorrow's dawn chorus being several decibels down on this morning's.

And I hope that it continues to atwhack victims

.

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Take a selfie and post it!  Please.  Post a lolbird.

 

 

[Lewis Luminos]

When I was a kid we owned long-haired dogs. In the spring, my mum would clip them and put the hair in a bird-feeder like that.  Our local birds lived in luxury!

[UncommonTruth]

  I've never heard of that! When I worked in salons, we sometimes had people come in asking for our hair clippings to spread around their gardens and keep the scavengers away. I never could wrap my head around the idea of having someone else's dirty hair all over my tomatoes though, so I never tried it. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hey, I wash my hair before going to get it cut! And I've donated my hair to both kids and adults who've lost it for some reason, usually chemo. When we had a dog, I'd brush him out and put the hairballs on the patio. The birds loved it.

I've been having less luck setting out yarn and feathers for the birds of late. We've got raptors in the area. The songbird population is down and they don't visit my patio as much because it's out in the open.

And if you think hair on your tomatoes is icky, don't visit a farm!

;-).

[ZoeTick]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

don't visit a farm!

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This is the most worthwhile advice you have ever offered.

[Perrie Juran]

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ZoeTick wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

don't visit a farm!

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This is the most worthwhile advice you have ever offered.

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Is that one step above or below "Buying the farm?"

[Kelli May]

An uncle of mine kept an aviary of small birds: mainly finches, budgies and canaries. At some point, the family adopted a lamb, and they had the bright idea of putting bits of fleece in the aviary for nesting material.

As it turns out, this isn't a good idea.

The birds got lengths of wool fibres wrapped around their feet, and several of them lost toes, and even entire feet, as a result. They all survived for a long time with missing toes (however long small cage birds live). I'm assuming yarn is less dangerous to avian life and limb (unless Zoe is using it to tempt them into shotgun range).

[Madelaine McMasters]

That's an interesting observation, Kelli. As my birds are wild, it's not easy to check them for missing toes. Our dog had straight hair, easily combed. Mine's about the same. Tightly curled wool would be more tangle prone. The last two years, I've been leaving out colored feathers and milkweed fluff, just because I have it. I've used short bits of wool yarn, food dyed twigs and other marked debris since childhood. I've never seen a problem, but I don't expect I would. Your cautionary tale is worth considering.

Meanwhile, the Humane Society and National Wildlife Foundation both recommends wool as a nesting material...

http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/resources/tips/nest_building.html#id=album-144&num=content-2737

http://blog.nwf.org/2014/04/how-to-offer-bird-nesting-materials-in-your-garden/

The two pages are similar enough I suspect one was cribbed from the other, or both from a third source.

 

[KarenMichelle Lane]

The last nest I was privileged to see and hold [found after a very strong windstorm] was comprised of what appeared to be small sticks, reeds from the local wetlands, some man-made and/or natural fabric, animal fur, hair from something, smallish feathers and goo [i think this was caused from soaking in water overnight]. It was about 3-4 inches in size. [i wish I had had a camera at the time.]

I didn't have a pack to carry it home with me but it was seen well after the nesting season had completed and I imagined the many chicks that had flown the coup so to say.

 

P.S. On the not so lucky side of the circle of life, I also owned a Hunting Tom that excelled in playing dead and catching birds as they came in to snatch a bit of old Tom tummy fur for their nests.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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KarenMichelle Lane wrote:

P.S. On the not so lucky side of the circle of life, I also owned a Hunting Tom that excelled in playing dead and catching birds as they came in to snatch a bit of old Tom tummy fur for their nests.

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I love it. Our family Tom was quite a hunter. I've told here before the story of his dispatching the neighbor's nasty Pekinese.

And I've also reported (in a thread about wind turbines killing birds, I think) that windows and cats are a bigger problem for birds than most anything else...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm