Blogs

Our garden was a hive of activity this morning. Along with our usual everyday visitors we had a Jay and Greater Woodpecker visit! I'm so glad that they chose today to visit. They are occasional visitors and it is always a delight to see them. We had a couple of squirrels at the same time and it was...

Hi, for us it's the squirrel that did it - I don't yet have a feeder, only a big stone pot to put seeds in. Today a squirrel came and ate all the sunflower seeds, scaring away the birds. Only a lone robin was brave enough to sample the seeds after the squirrel left :)

This is seed time for the UK’s deciduous trees. Conkers, beech nuts, hazelnuts acorns and even pine cones are all types of tree seed. Just like fruits such as apples, berries and pears some of them are very tasty to animals. Squirrels absolutely love hazelnuts so if you manage to find some that...

Hi I live on the edge of a village, looking out over a100-acre crop-field (crop is usually rape or wheat). There are oak trees in my garden, various other trees in neighbouring gardens, and a small copse of oaks a short distance away in the middle of the field. Several years ago we placed an owl...

The answer is almost certainly no (unless you count dolls houses). Squirrels can though, they can jump 6 metres in one leap. Squirrels are such common creatures that we often ignore them. Maybe you'll pay them a bit more attention once you've read this though. As well as being incredible leapers...

Hi all The problem with wildlife is that it needs to feed and wherever there's food there will be squirrels. We have a drey in our ash tree and they can be a nuisance sometimes but they are also very entertaining especially when the youngsters start cavorting about the branches. My biggest...

Hi all I read that hanging CDs in your garden can scare away magpies, but my question is does it also scare away the smaller birds that we are trying to encourage? Our house is in Edinburgh, and we have literally hundreds of magpies and scores of grey squirrels. The small bird population is small...

Squirrel nicking the birds food

The robin took charge of the new feeder and patrolled between feeders on 2 trees chasing away the blue tits and great tits. However when the long tailed tits arrived he did not chase them - are they too aggressive for him? I have a pheasant who also patrols the garden - another appeared last week but...

This is my first birdwatch survey - it was good to actually sit down for an hour with the focus on the birds. I haven't been in this house for long either. It's near a stream and I was hoping to see the moorhens again but no luck. Maybe they only come in the garden looking for food when it's...

I love all our feathered visitors. We feed our birds on peanuts and all the relevant scraps from the kitchen, fruit, seeded bread and fat balls. The peanuts get scattered from the bird table by the larger birds and fall underneath. Several weeks ago, my husband called me to the window and we saw two...

I was watching BBC Gardener's World on Fri 20th Aug and the programme said to sprinkle 'Chilli powder' over bird nuts to drive away squirrels. The presenter said that the RSPB suggested this, does this work?

For christmas we gave our regular squirrels a special treat. Sweet chestnut to go with their monkey nuts. Whereas they would scurry off to bury the monkey nuts, the sweet chetsnuts were devoured on the spot.