When do birds fly south for the winter?
I am renovating my rotten fascia boards and there is a birds nest in one corner. What is the best time to evict the birds? I don't want the deaths of some young chicks on my conscience!
Bruce
They'll leave as soon as the chicks can fly, I'd be surprised if there were any still in there unless they're swifts. If they are swifts PLEASE let them be, they're getting fewer and fewer. It won't be long before they go. The adults won't continue to occupy the nest.
Also, make sure you leave access to the roof for next year if possible. One of the easons for the reduction ofbirds is the lack of nesting sites because of different ways of building houses.
I hope you don't have that.
Mary
So starlings, sparrows etc. should have left by August? I thought they stayed until Sept/Oct. Come to think of it, I haven't heard much chirping recently.
Normally I wouldn't mind birds in the roof. But they do tend to leave bird muck all over the brickwork where they go in and out...what's best for cleaning this off?
Bruce
Ours all have already flown the nest. Only the swifts are still there, they're vey late in starting. In fact 'ours' use a nest evacuated by sparrows - every year. Starlings are very early.
Well, you don't have to look up :-)
A power washer works but it's a waste of water.You could get up a ladder with a dry stiff brush. And a mask.
Mary
cor, not round out way they aren't! It's lovely to watch them on a summer evening, bloody loads of them flying around!
Funny that. I came home today at lunchtime to hear a hell of a racket upstairs, and found a swift trapped up there! I think it can only have come down through the ceiling hatch, which I happened to have left open (although I didn't think there were any holes that big. We certainly don't have any nests in the house.) Never seen a swift that close up before TBH, and I had to find a picture to check that's definitely what it was. Anyway, Mary, you'll be pleased to hear that Swiftie went tearing out the bedroom window when I opened it, apparently none the worse for the experience!
David
Tonight I counted twelve - I reckon some of the fledglings are out. We haven't seen more than five at a time until today. The numbers are reducing year on year which is why I want people to protect them.
The most wonderful thing about swifts is the noise - the sound of summer. The second is the speed they fly at - cutting through the air ...
You know that they can't stand or walk - legs and feet too feeble, they don't need them. But one year a young swift must have fallen out of the nest and into our cavity wall. We rescued it, a teenage son held it in his hands. There can't be many people who've held a swift. He didn't know what to do, nor did I. I said, "Throw it into the air and see what happens, it has no chance unless it can fly." He threw it into the air - and it went up and up - magic! Now, every time he sees them flying, he remembers that he held one in his hand. An enduring memory - it must be twenty years ago.
The other magical bird is the skylark. Once I watched one, unbelievingly, while Spouse was flying a model on setaside land. I told him to watch this thing going up and up, singing. "Keep watching, keep watching, " I instructed, even when the bird was invisible, it was so high. Then suddenly it dropped like a stone, straight down, accelerating at 32' per sec per sec, until it pulled out of the fall at ground level. Spouse couldn't believe it either, he wished he could pull an aircraft out of such a fall ...
Mary
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I'm delighted!
Well done:-)
Mary
Last week we were on our way home from Spain in a traffic jam queueing towards Alicante airport. There were literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of Swifts around - I've never seen anything like it! I agree - lovely to watch.
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