Who Are You Feeding Outdoors?

[Caprichoso]

My back yard has a massive crab apple tree where I've hung many bird seed and suet feeders. The usual visitors I have are a multitude of different sparrows, house finches, pine siskins, blue jays, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers. I also have a hummingbird and butterfly feeder. The hummingbirds are not as common here but the occasional one can be seen at times.

I also feed 3 squirrels, (1 momma and 2 babies) and I have pellets I put out for the rabbits( I live by a ravine so there are many bunnies.

I have also been known to feed mice (ooh my spouse would kill me for saying that) and yesterday had lots of enjoyment watching the little guy eat a strawberry that I had given him from our strawberry plant.

So, who are you feeding?

 

[ZoddyZod]

birds - although rooks seem to like my chimney for nesting, so I may need to re-think my feeding

 

[Baccus]

Mostly birds such as Pale headed parrots (rosellas), Sulpher Crested Cockatoos, Rainbow lorikeets,Double Bar Finches, Chestnut Breasted Finches, Crested pigeons, peaceful doves and sometimes galahs and corellas. Of the introduced birds sparrows and turtle doves are often at my feeder. My yard also gets visisted by PeeWees, Willy Wag Tails and Rufous Fantails, Magpies, Butcher Birds, Black Faced Cuckoo Shrikes, Koels, Rainbow Bee Eaters, Brown Honeyeaters, Spangled Drongos, Mistletoe Birds, Figbirds, Noisy Miners, Babblers, Sacred Kingfishers, a Boobook owl and a Harrier. I'd prefer it if the harrier stayed away as it attacks my avairy of birds. We used to also get Red Back Fairy Wrens but they have all disapeared after all the recent land clearing for new housing .

I know we have the odd snake about usually Eastern Browns, but I have also found a tree snake and a spotted python, the python was in my bird avairy and had eaten my breeding pair of canaries ...does that count as feeding? .
We have resident green tree frogs that come to the back patio at night and a couple of them accept handouts of food, mealworms, geckos (we only give them the pest introduced geckos), grasshoppers and locusts.

And through out the warmer months there are some microbats that are always wizzing around the streetlight out the front of our house. When my trees get bigger in the backyard I plan to put up a bat box to encourage a colony of microbats to take up residenacy, because they do a great job eating insects and are so tiny and cute .

Otherwise apart from my dogs (who I of course feed) and our cat, and the tanks of fish (and the pond), avairy of birds the only other critters I have deliberately added to my yard is a hive of native stingless bees.

 

[StandbySetting]

Nothing annoys me more than people who feed stray cats, how do you know they're a stray? Our cat doesn't wear a collar so quite a few people could class him as stray, whenever we fit one he pulls it off and we've tried loads of different designs, and because people have been feeding him he's over weight.

I feed the birds though.

 

[Baccus]

Nothing annoys me more than people who feed stray cats, how do you know they're a stray? Our cat doesn't wear a collar so quite a few people could class him as stray, whenever we fit one he pulls it off and we've tried loads of different designs, and because people have been feeding him he's over weight.

I feed the birds though.

Neighbors who feed my dogs drive me nuts, One dog is a shocker for putting on weight and the other one has food allergies.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

My 4 soon to be 5 kids

 

[Alasse]

I dont feed anything outside but my dog and my pondfish. Feeding birds or wildlife makes them become dependant on humans for their food, and not usually the correct food for them either, definately not ideal. Strays (wether they are real strays or owned and not on their property) definately dont get fed, they get short shifted out of my yard or get trapped and handed over to the pound.

 

[micko]

I feed the birds although there only seems to be starlings (which are on the decline apparently) we get the odd bluetit sometimes but that's it.
Have some housemartins that always come back year after year and have their nest at the apex of the roof. They've lost quite a few this year, I've found a few eggs on the ground
.

We've our own rabbits to feed, cats to feed and dogs to feed so I don't feed anything else apart from the kids.
Oh, sorry, I feed the slugs a lot. I give them a healthy diet of slug pellets and salt.
They've ate all my plants this year.

 

[Caprichoso]

I dont feed anything outside but my dog and my pondfish. Feeding birds or wildlife makes them become dependant on humans for their food, and not usually the correct food for them either, definately not ideal. Strays (wether they are real strays or owned and not on their property) definately dont get fed, they get short shifted out of my yard or get trapped and handed over to the pound.

My local wild bird club encourages feeding and providing water and shelter for the song birds as their numbers are on a decline due to human infraction and the extreme weather has been hard on them. I do agree with you on not feeding stray cats though, they go to the pound if I can catch them.

 

[Heyfool]

Nothing annoys me more than people who feed stray cats, how do you know they're a stray? Our cat doesn't wear a collar so quite a few people could class him as stray, whenever we fit one he pulls it off and we've tried loads of different designs, and because people have been feeding him he's over weight.

I feed the birds though.

You feed birds, birds get fat, fat cat catches fat bird and gets fatter.......see it's all down to you.

You shouldn't collar cats although I like the ones with bells as you can hear where they are for the water pistol treatment.

 

[StandbySetting]

Domesticated animals rarely eat what they kill.

 

[Heyfool]

I have a robin that eats from my hand and a blackbird and thrush that will bang on the back door if they think we've forgotten them. They help themselves to dogs water and leftovers, when the young hatch and can get about the Blackbird brings her chicks in.
Then there are pheasants, pigeons, doves, sparrow, dunnock, blue, great and longtailed tits, woodpeckers that feed off the redhot pokers planted for them and horrible Magpies. Finally there is the Sparrow Hawk who occasionaly helps himself to one of the little fellas from the birdtable. There was me thinking I was feeding them and all it is is a buffet table for a Sparrowhawk.

 

[Heyfool]

Domesticated animals rarely eat what they kill.

Well you want to pop over and tell the farm cats and the terrier that then?

 

[StandbySetting]

Farm cats aren't domestic pets, they're a different type of cat used specifically for farm work, such as dealing with pest rodents.

 

[Heyfool]

Farm cats aren't domestic pets, they're a different type of cat used specifically for farm work, such as dealing with pest rodents.

I don't think you understand domesticated, it doesn't refer to being in a house. the Cows are domesticated, so are the Pigs, and the farm cats, yes they are ratters but they also live in the house when they feel the desire to. Still getting over the fact you wanted to tell a farmer what a farm cat was.