My new bird table

[Sam B]

Big day today - our new bird table was erected. I've really missed having a bird feeding station. I brought over all our seed feeders from the UK, but the birds just weren't interested in them, and all the native birds are nectar feeders, fruit, nut and insect eaters. So we've had a new feeding station custom made. We bought a nectar feeder at the shop on Tiritiri Matangi island.

I'll keep you posted with photos over the coming weeks with the birds that we get on it - if we get any. We are only a km or 2 from Maungatautari bird sanctuary (pest free inland sanctuary) so there is a really good range of native birds around us, including kaka.

Photos:

Close up of the nectar feeder with sugar solution:



The monster in its entirety:



Close up of fruit feeders aimed to attract parrots (that mountain in the background is the bird sanctuary):



Yippee! Excited.

[Sovenok]

Thank you Sam, you are a very kind person!

[JandM]

Oh... I'd never thought of having to have a different kind of bird feeder! I've been thinking what a 'fun' thing it will be to MAF-clean our bird table, which I'd like to bring as it was made by a local craftsman. Looking forward to your pix, so I hope the 'neighbours' soon find out where you are.

[YouMeAndThree]

I'm looking forward to the picture updates.

We got the girls some new seed feeders when we arrived here as they'd always enjoyed 'feeding' the birds in the UK. Finding seeds to put in it proved a difficult exercise though. Anyway, once we found some seeds it must have take 3 to 4 weeks before we got any interest whatsoever from any birds. And it has made me realise quite how decimated the sparrow population has become in the UK as we find loads here.

[rupicola]

Great idea to post some pictures if you get to see any birds around the table, it's also one of my favourite hobbies. Just staring outside my windows that is, I'm not that fanatic that I go and sit outside in the woods for hours and hours just for a glimpse.

[Georgebulldog]

Love the feedinging station, wish we had the room, I just bought a bird bath & a hanging bird table & a seed feeder, funny both the hanging table & feeded came from the UK I bought a load of seed stuff from Bunnings but I saw a good variety in Woolworths of all places so may move on to this. Still waiting for any takers though, have lots of black birds & sparrows on that side of the garden

Can yo tell me where you got the nectar feeder from & how it works? I have a gum tree that brings in Tui & Fan tails but it's looking sickly so something extra for them would be nice

[johnnie]

Well that is a very handsome bird table - I'm impressed! I do hope you get birds visiting. One of the joys even in London is the amount of birds that come and feed, even in the summer. I'm looking forward to your kaka photos
Johnnie

[JandM]

The noise of wood pigeons taking off in the garden of their new home made my 3-year-old granddaughter jump - they didn't get them at the old place - so my son explained to her how their wings make lots of noise, and pointed them out. When she went indoors, her Mum asked her what she'd been doing, she said, 'Daddy was showing me some wood chickens.'

[Sam B]

Here's some advice I found on the internet about using nectar feeders:

Nectar-feeders need clean bowls
Home » News » Dunedin
By Hamish McNeilly on Sat, 20 Jun 2009
News: Dunedin
Click photo to enlarge
A tui pauses between a feed of sugar water. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.
A tui pauses between a feed of sugar water. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.
The kindness of strangers may be leading to the untimely deaths for some of our native birds, a southern bird lover says.

Mixing sugar and water together may not seem a recipe for disaster, but left for several days could be deadly for unsuspecting nectar-feeding tui and bellbirds, Russell Evans, of Invercargill, said.

"We could be killing them through our kindness."

Mr Evans and his wife, May, have noticed fewer native birds around their bush-clad Otatara home this winter and, after witnessing a tui gasp for air, the couple knew something was amiss.

The couple sent two tui specimens to Massey University for an autopsy, which revealed the birds tested positive for aspergillus, a respiratory disease caused by a fungus infection.

Massey University avian and wildlife health senior lecturer Brett Gartrell said while it was unlikely the tui contracted aspergillus from dirty sugar water, unclean practices would result in the death of birds.

Salmonella and candidiasis - the same bug which causes thrush in humans, were deadly to birds and could lurk in unchanged sugar water unless containers were emptied and cleaned, he said.

Mr Evans said he did not want to discourage people from putting out sugar water for birds - a vital source of nourishment during winter, but urged people to put out just enough food to last a day and then when finished wash and sterilise the container.

"It just takes one person not to do this and we can have a lot of sick birds on our hands. Once you see a bird gasping for air, it is basically curtains for it."

Department of Conservation scientific officer Ralph Powlesland, of Wellington, said sugar water was an essential food source during the winter months for nectar-feeding birds such as tui and bellbirds.

It was important people continue with the practice of putting out sugar water in colder southern areas as there were fewer nectar sources available to birds.

"It doesn't matter what sort of container it is in, as long as it is a clean container."

hamish.mcneilly@odt.co.nz

Feeding tips
How to feed nectar-feeding birds sugar water. -
> Dilute one cup of sugar with two litres of water in a clean container
> Put out just enough sugar water to last for a day
> Wash the container each day
> Sit back and wait for the birds to arrive

[Sam B]

We bought our nectar feeder at the shop on Tiritiri Matangi Island. I have also seen them for sale at other DOC visitor centres. You could try contacting DOC for where to buy one near you. You just make up the sugar solution and put it in an empty plastic bottle, then invert the bottle into the plastic feeder, which has holes for the birds to put their beaks in. Clever people could defintiely find a way to improvise this I think.

As you can see above, the sugar solution needs changing daily and it all needs cleaning regularly.

Not much action as yet - 2 silver eyes earlier on. Nothing else as yet. I'm dispatching J to buy monkey nuts tomorrow, as I know kakas like these...