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What a fabulous day.This seems to be the start of summer not spring.I have been pottering about the garden today and i have never seen so many Ladybirds,they are everywhere,anybody out there that may know the reason why?

I was also watching a big fat bumble bee going from plant to plant,and burst out laughing when it landed on a minature daffodil,it was so heavy the flower head touched the ground.

What a lovely afternoon

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Sounds like you live here !

We did the front garden just before we went away and SWMBO remarked then on the amount of Ladybirds, I can only assume that it's a combination of the abundance of aphids last year and the (relatively) mild winter we had.

Plus we had a massive Bumble Bee in the house yesterday too , I reckon we could have saddled it and ridden it down the road !

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Took my lil lady into the garden to 'feel' the washing to see if it was dry, she loves the different textures of the clothes, towels etc.. & a lady bird landed on her hand as she reached out.. I had a very excited baby who squeeled and tensed up .. but cried when it flew away as she went to grab it :(

.. Today is the first day out the house this week, i decided to leave the housework till last & enjoy the weather. We had a stroll to netherfield retail park this morning were we bought swimming stuff for Lady, some new vests & a pair of cute sandles! Also grabbed her some baby sunscreen - £10.99 for the teeniest tube!???? Grabbed abit of shopping and a news paper from morrisons, dropped everything off home then went to the park and played on the swings for an hour. now were at home, washing on the line & almost dry already, only been out less than an hour.. dinners prepared & im going to do a spot of tidying before his majesty gets home.

Ooh & you know how i say we never get any birds?? well, this afternoon after i put the washing out i stood on my garden path having a cuppa & was washing these two little birds play on next doors silver birch tree.. Not sure if they were some sort of tit or a starling. They were brown with a white front and a dark coloured 'mask'. very sweet to watch & makes a change from the odd crow or pidgeon!

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pixie,your two birds could be Gold Crests,we never used to have any birds in our garden,until we started putting all sorts of food out.Robins love walnuts,blackbirds love sultanas and we ask the butcher for fatty bacon so we can cut the fat off for the birds.Make my own fat balls too,plus lots of different seeds.Plus we have three water bowls for drinking and bathing,amazes my husband when in the cold depths of winter the blackbirds just sit in it.

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I doubt they were Gold Crests from that description, more like Blue or Great Tits

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Partner reckons they were sparrows because of the 'mask' Hmmm....

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Innit bleddy marvellous! I had two pictures of Goldcrests and deleted them both yesterday by accident when clearing some old files out. Doh!

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Pixie.

Get a steel nut feeder for garden birds (available at most hardware stores) and hang it from your linepost. Mine attracts: Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Sparrow, Coal tit, Great tit, Blue tit, and Siskin; they queue up for a turn each morning. Fat balls can be bought very cheaply if you can't make your own - I bought a tub of 50 for IIRC £8 from the Original factory Shop earlier in the year. Hang them on your washing line to attract Tits. Ground feeders such as Blackbirds and Robins like mealworms, bread flakes, or anything fatty. Mealworms are fun to grow or can be bought from the internet or local stores. All you need to grow them is a tub of bran and a piece of apple for moisture. For ground feeders I use my welltop but you cold place a few bricks or blocks in an open space and put the food on top. This gives them a chance to see potential predators whilst feeding. Water can be supplied by fixing a dish to the top of a post. anything such as a plant pot base (a pew pence from B&Q etc..) will do. It lifts the soul to see birds flitting around and feeding - much better than a garden devoid of life.

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Feed them and yee'll nae doot get more. Oops! I seem to be picking up a Scots accent.

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Wacky Doo Dah is my favourite emoticon. speaking of Doo Dah, I used to know a Johnny Duda who lived on Goodwood Avenue in Arnold - I wonder if anyone else knew him.

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Wacky Doo Dah is my favourite emoticon. speaking of Doo Dah, I used to know a Johnny Duda who lived on Goodwood Avenue in Arnold - I wonder if anyone else knew him.

I reckon I did Compo! My folks' house was very close by just through the twitchell, on Mansfield Road. Know Goodwood Avenue very well.

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Another lad on Goodwood was Johnny Holmes. If you knew them both you might be interested in a little jolly jape we had in 1960 or 61 (have to check) when the industrial estate was being built off Rolleston Drive.

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I would be interested, yes :) Just trying to think of a few family names you might remember on Goodwood Ave Compo, the Coopers, Atkinsons, Collintons, Beardsley, Davenport?

Just trying to picture Johnny Duda/Doodah, it was a name I heard around the house a bit and is familiar to me.

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Was Johnny the one who went to meet his maker whilst travelling on an omnibus ??

You must remember the song they made up about it ??

Doo Dah died on the bus today , doo dah, doo dah ;

Doo Dah died on the bus today , doo dah, doo dah , day ............................................... slywink

I'll get my coat

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A LOT OF THE LITTLE BIRDS LIKE MAGGOTS TOO BUT BUT YOU CAN ONLY PUT A FEW OF THEM OUT AT A TIME OR THEY TURN TO BIG BLUE BOTTLE FLIES VERY QUICKLY. WHEN I USED TO TAKE THE KIDS DOWN TO SEE DAVE WHEN HE FISHED THE CANAL AT LENTO WOULD OFTEN WATCH THE ROBINS SPARROWS TITS AND BLACK BIRDS HOP DOWN FROM THE TREES AND PINCH A FEW THIS TIME OF YEAR WHEN THEY FEEDING THERE YOUNG THEY WOULD GET ASMANY ASTHEY COULD AND FLY OFF TOO FEED THE YOUNG THEN COME BACK, IN THE WINTER MONTHS THEY JUST CAME AND SAT ON BAIT CONTAINER AND ATE AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED THEN FLY OF AS LONG AS YOU SAT QUIETLYTHEY DID NOT SEEM WORRED YOU WERE THERE. NO PROBLEM WITH MY OLDER SON BUT THE YOUNGES DID NOT NOR STILL DOSE NOT KNOW WHAT QUIET OR STILL MEANS.

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As much as I'd love to attract birds into my garden, I'll give maggots and meal worms a miss. HUGE phobia of them or anything like them, yuck.

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I saw my second robin this afternoon whilst I was busy re-locating a clematis. I've seen two in two days; you may say, 'there's nothing unusual in that' but I haven't caught sight of a robin in ages and in the past they've been frequent visitors to my garden. My concern is: are their numbers dwindling?

Another concern: I'm unhappy because I've lost two clematis' - and I thought we'd had a mild Winter - one of them was a rich, plum colour and gave me much pleasure. It really hurts me to lose something beautiful . . . even though it's been a beautiful day. :mellow:

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when we lived in clifton noticed robins going in and out of our garagedid not think a lot of it untill a few days later went into the garage to get some tings out of big freezer in there glanceto the right of freezer were we had a stool standing my sons fulfaced cycle helmet ontop of it saw adult robin pop out and fly outside while it was gone had a quik look inside 6 young chicks perhaps one two days old eyes still closed watch them over the next few weeks as the grew and eventualy flew of used to leave a few of daves magots out in asmall bait tin every day for them untill they all flew off . did not have a camera at the time so could not take photoes, when lee told his teacher about this she did not belive him and asked me told her it was correct .when they had all flown off lee took his hemet compleat with the nest to show at school he had to stand in assemble and show all the scool.

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I saw my second robin this afternoon whilst I was busy re-locating a clematis. I've seen two in two days; you may say, 'there's nothing unusual in that' but I haven't caught sight of a robin in ages and in the past they've been frequent visitors to my garden. My concern is: are their numbers dwindling?

Another concern: I'm unhappy because I've lost two clematis' - and I thought we'd had a mild Winter - one of them was a rich, plum colour and gave me much pleasure. It really hurts me to lose something beautiful . . . even though it's been a beautiful day. :mellow:

Not doubting your word for one minute re the lack of Robins but it's a bit of a falacy that we don't think they are around at the moment , they are , it's just that they blend in more to their surroundings than they do in Winter. Their "Bright Red Breast" sticks out like a sore thumb against a frosty/snowy white background in the Winter months where as now they are better camoflaged against the browns , reds and greens of 'new growth'.

Oh that and the fact that 50,000,000 birds are killed by domestic cats each year !!

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As much as I'd love to attract birds into my garden, I'll give maggots and meal worms a miss. HUGE phobia of them or anything like them, yuck.

Mealworms are the larvae of a beetle, like caterpillars. The mealworms you buy from garden shops are all dried and not wriggly or slippery. They feel like your average cereal and look like small brown caterpillars.

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