For our September 2024 monthly meeting, we were delighted to welcome RSPB long time officer Chris Tynan (lucky for us as he is retiring next year) whose talk on Garden Birds was informative, enlightening, and very entertaining. He gave us the comparisons between the life of birds and our human society, not so very different as it turns out!
Chris mentioned the friendly but fiercely territorial male robins who delight us with their festive good looks apparently send their females off to the sun for the winter months and the promiscuous sparrows who think nothing of laying four egg clutches to four different ‘fathers’ but have the presence of mind to keep just one partner to help feed the babies!
Most of our garden birds rely on insects for food, but the amount of insects has dropped dramatically over the years with the use of pesticides, you’ll have noticed no longer do we have to clean the corpses off our car bonnets after a long drive! But help is at hand, according to Chris, the British public now spend over £5billion a year on bird food, his top recommendation is live mealworms, ugh! Also sunflowers seeds and chopped apples. But consequently we are now seeing larger numbers of the various species in our gardens, apart from the Blackbirds, Blue Tits & collared doves, we now have Great Tits, Long Tailed Tits, Siskins, Wrens and Warblers. Green Finches, Chaffinches and the pretty colourful Goldfinches, often seen in large groups and apparently increasing in numbers. He also mentioned Parrots but there are not many wild ones in Southport yet. Sadly we rarely see a Thrush, they once thrived on slugs and snails but slug pellets put them off their staple diet and consequently their numbers have declined.
If you have a garden with trees & bushes for them to hide & nest in, and a plentiful supply of suitable food & fresh clean water you will get birds, but be sure to keep feeders clean and throw away any mouldy seed or nuts.
This was just the tip of a fascinating iceberg from Chris Tynan who gave an exceptional talk enjoyed by over two hundred of our members.
See here for our next monthly meeting and another fab speaker!
