Speaking on behalf of the Starling. who are you calling common?Looks like a common Starling to me.
Not the best picture as it is through a window and rushed but what type of bird is having a go at the home made bird cake, it has a yellow beak.
This reminds me, a Starling chick flew into our patio doors back in 2016 and knocked itself out.
After fending off my cat several times it sat itself up and flew away after about 20 minutes.
They are threatened species now.Don't know if that practice still goes on - it seems pretty barbaric, and hardly dents the population, but what else are they going to do when their livelihood is being wiped out?
Yeah beautiful colours on our Starlings when you look closely enoughI remember well as a young child being fascinated by starlings' iridescent colouring, they used to be a lot of them about, but I hardly see them nowadays.
Next door has house martins as does a few around us. Most of the houses close by back onto each other and it is a great sight in the evenings when they are feeding on the wing before bed time. We get bats flitting around as well. I suppose the wall of houses looks like cliffs.In my childhood, the garden was always full of sparrows, starlings and thrushes. My mum still lives in the same house and when I visit it is very rare to see any of these.
Same with house martins - used to be loads of them, building their nests in the eves - can't remember the last time I saw one.
Cheers,
Nigel
They will also eat all the eggs and chicks of smaller birds, so you might not want to encourage them too much. And of course grey squirrels are an invasive pest that certainly shouldn't be encouraged, especially in Scotland where native Red Squirrels still exit.As for Magpies they rarely visit the communal back garden but when they do they tend to be bullies.
Used to get all sorts in our garden, then the squirrels moved in and we hardly see any birds these days .
Red squirrels have never lived in our cities as far as I know and grey squirrels may well be considered invasive, but that genie is well out of the bottle and as far as I am concerned will continue to enjoy the nuts and corn on the cob I provide.And of course grey squirrels are an invasive pest that certainly shouldn't be encouraged, especially in Scotland where native Red Squirrels still exit.