Why can't a seagull live in a garden. And we have a seagull in our apartment, and you? Additional material for the lesson

The Lazarev family temporarily lives in a modest one-room apartment in the Oktyabrsky District of Murmansk. As they say, in tight quarters, but not offended. A whole zoo perfectly coexists with two people here: a lop-eared rabbit, a Chilean squirrel, a mestizo of the Central Asian Shepherd Dog (Alabai) and ... three gulls. Compassionate Murmansk residents keep winged pets not for the sake of showing off to friends. If not for the Lazarevs, then death would have awaited the seabirds.

Come on, fly!

We picked up the bone this spring with a broken wing. Senya - he is still a chick with us - was found at about the same time near the monument to the 6th Komsomolskaya Battery on General Zhurba Street. He also had a broken wing. And Rosa was recently brought to me by my sister. Someone shot a seagull with pneumatics, the bullet got stuck in the bones, it fell and severely skinned its paws, - Elena Lazareva tells about her feathered pets with human names.

And those, in turn, look at her from behind the glass as if they understand - they are talking about them. Senya and Kostya live on the balcony. And at night they sleep in cardboard boxes in the kitchen. Senya separately, but Kostya and Rosa together. By the way, the girl is separated from them during the day - her wing still hurts after the operation. But, despite the pain, she looks at us, unexpected guests, with curiosity.

At first, the Lazarevs did not plan to keep seagulls in the apartment.

When we brought birds to veterinary clinics, they only looked askance at us, they say, why did you come to us with seagulls? And the answer was the same everywhere: “We don’t have an ornithologist, we can’t help in any way.” We are still looking for a bird specialist in Murmansk, but you won't believe how hard it is to find one. They wanted the birds to come out and set free. But, alas, there is almost no chance that they will fly. We took Kostya to the stadium, forced him to run, pushed him to fly. But he couldn't. The rose will definitely not fly. We place bets on Senya. I want to appeal to northerners through your newspaper: don't be cruel, don't shoot at animals. They did nothing wrong to you, and you doom them to torment! Elena says.

There is no doctor for this patient.

Render medical care it was not easy for sick birds in Murmansk. But patience and care have taken their toll. Seagulls eat excellently, they have ceased to be afraid of people. They never became tame - they do not like being stroked or picked up, they immediately try to break free. But they are great at taking care of people. And to look after them, I must say, is still not easy.

I bathe them twice a day. Still, sea birds, - the mistress of the house smiles. - They also eat twice. We buy them fresh capelin - the most budget option. Each bird eats about 8 fish per day. But they can also eat what we cook for ourselves, pasta, for example.

By nature, all birds are completely different. Rosa is shy and quiet, the owners do not hear a sound from her. Kostya, like a real old-timer, sits confidently and proudly on the balcony. It was only at first that he “cried” a lot when he saw his relatives outside the window, but he kept trying to fly to them. But now I got used to it and understood the charm home life. But Senya is a bully and a bully.

It pecks, of course, it can bite a lot. He commands other birds and fights with Kostya. Maybe she will shed her hair and settle down, - Elena thinks. But such a daring Senya still loves to sit by the window and look at the blue sky.

Elena and her husband are not afraid that they can get infected from birds. They say that they often pick up animals on the street, nurse them. And, fortunately, they did not pick up any infection from them. Birds do not have long to live in Murmansk - they will soon be taken to a private house in the south of the country so that they can freely run on green grass.

EXPERT COMMENT

It is better to keep decorative birds at home

If the Lazarev family keeps seagulls out of compassion for animals, then some northerners make them pets out of an incomprehensible desire to stand out. This is comparable to the rich who have crocodiles, wild boars or skunks as animals in their apartments.

Is this correct, we asked Deputy Director for Science of the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve Alexander Koryakin.

The level of aggression of a bird depends on how long it lives in the city. By the way, seagulls are smart, although many people think otherwise. No, you can’t teach them to speak, but the teams are completely. And living with a person, birds study his habits and predict behavior.

In addition, it is better not to tame wild birds, because, having become accustomed to constant feeding from humans, they lose their skills in obtaining food in nature. And the chicks simply do not develop such skills. If a person keeps a seagull at home, especially from a chick age, and then releases it into the wild, then most likely it will die, our expert notes. - If you find a chick on the street, then do not pick it up! Only if the bird is injured. But even then it is better to take it to ornithologists, and not keep it in an apartment. If the bird is wounded too hard, then it is more humane to finish it off. I repeat, it is better to keep decorative birds in the apartment, not wild ones.

BY THE WAY

I feel sorry for the bird

If you find a sick feathered one and your conscience does not allow you to leave it, seek help from the specialists of the following institutions:

Dear readers!

Do you have an unusual pet at home or does your pet know how to do something unique? Then feel free to write to us at: [email protected]. And we will make sure that the whole region and even the country knows about your artist.

The lop-eared rabbit and the mestizo alabai calmly get along with sea birds. Photo: Elena KOVALENKO

Most of the seagulls live along the sea coasts, and only a few species are characteristic of fresh waters, rivers, lakes located inland. Seagulls feed on fish, which they catch mainly from the surface, since only a few species of gulls, which are distinguished by a very light body, can dive. They also eat other marine animals and, in addition, any fall thrown ashore by the sea.

Sea gulls are extremely social birds, often nesting in huge colonies of many thousands. There are especially many seagulls in Norway. The gull always builds its nest on the ground and usually there are 3-4 eggs in the nest. Gull eggs are used for food, which is why there is a special business for collecting eggs, and all the eggs are not selected, but a certain part is left for further reproduction of the colonies. The coloration of males and females is the same, with the young plumage being brownish, while the old ones are dominated by white.

The most common gull in our country, or the common fisherman, is an inhabitant of only fresh water, and if by chance you have to get on sea ​​coast or at sea, it does not happen for a long time and, for the most part, during the flight. This gull loves lakes, ponds, rivers, overgrown with reeds, reeds and sedges. She arrives here in the spring, at the end of March - in April, and relatively soon, at the end of July, or rather, in August, she flies away from us. It happens that some of these gulls stay and spend the winter in warmer areas, where they stay on non-freezing waters, especially at the mouths of large rivers.

The gull makes its flights to the south in small flocks, and the birds fly in the form of an oblique line or a triangle open at the back. Our black-headed gull also nests in colonies; nests are built on tufts of sedge and reeds, surrounded by water and swamp. Usually there are 2-3 eggs in the nest and they are also collected and eaten, like the eggs of sea gulls, leaving only clutches. When their nests are robbed, gulls are very hostile to the kidnappers, violently rushing to both dogs and people, and almost touch them, and put other predators to flight, making an unbearable noise with their cry.

This seagull swims with a slightly raised tail and with wings crossed over them, runs nimbly on the ground, flies, although not very fast, but beautifully and easily. It feeds on small fish, which it catches on the fly or from the surface of the water when it swims, mainly worms and insects, which it collects both from the water and on the ground.

The length of an ordinary gull is 42 centimeters. In summer, her head is dark brown, in winter it is white with black, her back and wings are gray, the feathers on the wings are partly white, partly gray, both with black edges, her beak and legs are red.

In conclusion, the description of our river gull can be said that this bird brings triple benefits. She cleans the inhabited coastal strip from harmful insects and worms, eating carrion thrown out by the waves, she acts as a nurse.

Program content:

Clarify and expand children's knowledge about the seagull ( appearance, habitat, nutrition, habits, lifestyle).
Vocabulary: flock, nest, waterfowl, omnivores. To form the ability to give a reasoned answer to a question.
Strengthen the ability to work with scissors and a needle.
Develop thinking, observation, fine motor skills.
To cultivate an ecological outlook, interest in the nature of the native land.

Equipment:

An audio recording of the sea surf with the cries of seagulls, a 66 cm paper silhouette of a seagull, pictures of seagulls and various nests, paper blanks for construction, scissors, colored pencils, a needle and thread.

herring gull

black-headed gull

Lesson progress:

Today we have to get to know the bird that lives in our area. But I will not name this bird. You will recognize her by her voice. Close your eyes and imagine yourself on the deck of a pleasure boat. (Audio starts.) A fresh sea breeze blows you, with a quiet rustle, a wave gently splashes over the side of the boat. And they fly over the waves ... Do you recognize? What birds? These are seagulls.

Here are the largest of our gulls (showing pictures) - herring gull or gull and black-headed gull. And these seagulls are really very large - their length can be like that. (Showing the silhouette of a seagull with a bird span of 66 cm).
Why do you think seagulls have such strange nicknames - "laughter", "gull"? For a loud laughing voice.
Now think about why this gull is called silver, and this one is called black-headed? The herring gull has silver feathers, while the black-headed gull has black head feathers. The plumage of gulls is very dense, with abundant soft fluff, covered with waterproof grease on the outside. Almost all gulls have black wing tips. But the tail is usually short, in most species rounded, with tail feathers that help the gulls steer - turn during the flight. Seagulls have well-developed swimming membranes on their legs. Why do you think seagulls have swimming membranes on their feet? Swimming membranes on the legs of birds help them swim, row with their feet, like oars.
Can you think of other birds, as well as seagulls, that have swimming membranes on their feet?
(You can offer children pictures of various birds, from which you need to choose waterfowl with membranes on their legs). Geese, ducks, penguins, cormorants. All these birds can be called waterfowl. Why? Because they swim in the water.

Seagulls live in flocks. What does this mean? Seagulls are birds that love to live together in large companies. A flock is a group of birds or animals.
Seagulls nest once a year. Try to guess what "nest" means? When they say that birds "nest" - they mean that birds build nests, lay eggs in them and hatch chicks. Remember this word. Gulls also nest in flocks, next to each other, and sometimes together with other water birds. A male gull chooses a place for a nest and builds it right on the coastal rocks, among the stones or on the sea beach. The female gull lays eggs in a ready nest and incubates the chicks. Do you know why birds sit on nests with eggs? To warm the eggs with their warmth and protect them from the cold and enemies.

Didactic exercise "Find a nest of seagulls"

Children are offered pictures depicting various nests (on a tree, among grass, in a hollow, under a roof, on rocks), among which children must choose a seagull's nest. The teacher asks to explain the choice, why the rest of the nests cannot belong to seagulls.

The chicks hatched from the eggs are covered with thick pale gray fluff with colorful spots, because if the chicks were silver-white, like their mothers and fathers, they would be very noticeable and would become easy prey, and the variegated coloring helps the chicks to be invisible among rocks and hide from predators. For two weeks, the chicks remain in the nest, where they are cared for by both parents.

Dynamic pause "Seagulls are circling over the waves"

Seagulls circling over the waves
Let's follow them together.
Splashes of foam, the sound of the surf.
And over the sea - we are with you.
(Children wave their hands, imitating the flight of seagulls, I run loose on the carpet)

We are now sailing on the sea
And frolic in space.
More fun rake
And chase the dolphins.
(Children kneel, join hands behind their backs, alternately lift their feet off the floor at a fast pace)

Seagulls get their food both on water and on land - in the sea, in the coastal zone, in meadows and sown fields, even in garbage dumps.
The Herring Gull is an omnivorous bird. How do you understand the meaning of the word "omnivore"? Omnivores are those who eat everything, a variety of foods: both plant and animal.
In the fields and meadows, gulls willingly eat insects and mice. From this fields and meadows are of great benefit. And you guess what? Insects and mice destroy crops in the fields, and seagulls, eating these insects and mice, help to preserve the crop.
Seagulls float well, but rarely dive. They hunt for fish, mollusks, crustaceans, flying and aquatic insects. They destroy the nests of other birds, feeding on their eggs. Clams covered with thick shells are thrown from the height of a five-story building, thereby breaking the shell. In addition, many gulls willingly eat carrion or look for food among food waste in landfills and near fishing boats. Some gulls can fly tens of kilometers from water bodies to feed. In addition to animal food, they also eat seeds and berries.
In the morning and in the evening, flocks of seagulls visit the sea and beaches, where they willingly absorb crustaceans, dead fish, algae thrown out by waves and edible garbage left by people. And again, we can say that seagulls are our helpers. Why? They are like orderlies cleaning the beach and the sea.

And now I offer you a fun rhyme.

Counting "Seagulls"

The seagull warmed up the kettle,
Invited eight gulls.
Everyone came for tea!
How many seagulls - answer?

Let's stretch our fingers and make paper crafts.

Finger gymnastics "Seagull"

Fingers - head
Wings are palms.
(palms turned towards you, thumbs straightened away from themselves and intertwined, clinging to each other, the rest of the fingers are closed)

The seagull flies up
Flickers over the water.
(Without separating the fingers, depict the flight of a bird)

Sat on the wave.
(Connect the thumb and forefinger (head), fold the remaining fingers into a fist (torso). Lower your hand to the table and shake)

She ate a fish right there.
(Thumb and forefinger separate and join again.)

Design "Flying Seagull"

Children are invited to cut a seagull along the drawn outline from a sheet of paper folded in half. Then finish the details with colored pencils (eyes, beak, legs with membranes, ends of the wings). Then, in the center of the craft, a thread is pulled with a needle, a knot is tied. A seagull can be held by a string. Children beat the craft by moving their hand, blowing on it.

Questions:

What is the name of the largest of the Crimean gulls?
Why did they get such names?
Why do seagulls have membranes on their feet?
How do seagulls live - singly, in pairs or in flocks?
How do seagulls nest?
Why are seagulls called omnivores?
Why are seagulls called orderlies?

Additional material for the lesson:

"Seagulls"

We sat in a small cafe on the seashore, drank narzan and watched the seagulls walking along the embankment. They threw them pieces of bread. Seagulls deftly picked them up on the fly and at the same time emitted sharp, piercing cries.
“And why do people feed such idlers,” grumbled my friend, student Shura, with displeasure.
- What kind of slackers are they? - I stood up for the seagulls. How long do they have to fly to catch some unfortunate fish.
“That’s right, fish. How many fish they destroy!
At that moment, the cook came out of the kitchen. He went to the railing at the end of the terrace and threw out a whole bowlful of fish offal and miscellaneous kitchen leftovers.
- Fu, what a disgrace! - Someone of their visitors was indignant. - And how it is allowed to breed such unsanitary conditions!
“Listen, citizen! Shura called out to the cook, who, without paying any attention to the remarks, went back to the kitchen with an empty basin. - Come here.
The cook came over.
- What are you breeding flies for? Shura said reproachfully. - Yes, and you feed the idlers!
- Are these seagulls something idlers? the chef was surprised. - What do you! These are my helpers! And you are wrong about the unsanitary conditions. See how they cleaned everything up.
And indeed, less than five minutes had passed before the gulls that swooped down in a cloud cleaned up all the garbage.
- You go, - advised the cook, - out of town to the fishing piers. It's always full of fish waste. And if not for the seagulls, the shore would have turned into a dump. And they pick everything.
"That's right," said the citizen at the last table. - Seagulls are sea orderlies. Of course, they are not without sin: they destroy live fish. And how many dead ones are removed! Who would collect her, dead, in the sea? But when it decomposes, it would infect the living. Imagine the danger that would threaten the fish population if it were not for the seagulls!
Shura was confused.
“But I always considered these long-winged beauties pests,” he admitted.
From that time on, he stopped looking at the seagulls so angrily, and once even said:
It would be interesting to see their nests. I have heard of bird colonies, but I don't have a clear idea of ​​them.
Somehow, in the same summer, we happened to visit the rocks, where seagulls settled in multitudes. There was a time when the chicks had already left the nests, and there were no birds on the stones. We walked along the ledges, broken shells lay in the pits, feathers and down were lying around, tufts of dry grass stuck out.
And suddenly, almost at our very feet, a seagull screamed and thrashed. She fluttered, torn, but for some reason did not take off. We leaned towards her.
Yes, she's tied! Shura exclaimed.
- Can't be!
It turned out that the seagull was not tied, but pinned by the wing.
After examining it well, we realized that the bird, apparently, ran its wing on a sharp stalk of dry cattail while it was hatching chicks from eggs. Couldn't get free. So she remained chained to the nest. The male had to feed both the hatched children and their mother. Now half-dead grasshoppers and two small fish lay near her. We freed the prisoner by carefully cutting the twig holding her by the wing. The seagull took off and got lost among the other birds that flew over our heads with desperate cries while we freed their mate.
(According to M. Zverev)

Suggest a word:

"Sea, shake!" -
asked ... (Seagull)

The sea turns blue before us
Fly ... (Seagulls) over the waves.

Having eaten fish to satiety,
At the sea ... (Seagull) was resting.

Birds in the garden

The owner of a garden plot, who spends most of his time in his garden, bending over in three deaths and picking in the ground, does not always notice what a hectic life is in full swing around him. His eyes and all his thoughts are riveted to the ground and to the plants, and he does not hear the singing of birds, does not see how they flutter from branch to branch or run around the beds, looking for something under the grass or lumps of soil. If, nevertheless, he would turn his attention to the birds and observe them a little, he would be quite surprised to find that a very diverse bird population lives in his garden. There are more than three dozen species of birds in the gardens. Some live here permanently and even make nests, others, having built nests in forests and meadows, fly to the garden to feed, others visit the gardens only along the way during flights in spring and autumn. The gardener would be even more surprised if he knew what a huge number of pests birds eat in his garden. Probably, then he would have immediately abandoned pesticides and started building birdhouses and titmouses.

The tree sparrow, which prevails in gardens, differs from the house sparrow in its smaller size, more elegant and thin "figure", less pugnacity, and also in color.

People have long been accustomed to consider starlings the most desirable garden bird. It is the starlings that are welcomed in every possible way, they are hung for them wherever possible, artificial houses - birdhouses. Therefore, the starlings almost forgot that they are forest birds, and moved to the apartments prepared for them. In early summer, starlings feed mainly on insects. They arrive in the spring just when garden work and digging of beds begin. Starlings run along the freshly dug up earth and deftly catch the inhabitants of the soil turned up to the surface. No matter how the larva hurries to burrow back into the saving depth, the starling turns out to be more agile and in a split second manages to grab it with its beak.

During the summer, the starling lays eggs twice. It searches for insects for feeding chicks mainly on the surface of the soil, less often on trees. Having finished feeding the chicks and gaining freedom, the starlings often form large flocks that gather to spend the night together on several nearby trees.

The same joint overnight stays in large flocks are observed in other birds living near human habitation: rooks, jackdaws, sparrows, gray crows. It's pretty important point in the life of birds, allowing them to exchange information about the availability of food. The place of spending the night is compared with the information center. Birds that have found places rich in food, for example, places of mass reproduction of some pest or scattered grain, let you know about this by a certain behavior, and in the morning a whole flock flies after them.

Perhaps the most useful and only useful bird that does no harm is the great tit. It is almost exclusively an insectivorous bird that feeds mainly on fruit trees. Methodically examining every branch, every leaf, she destroys all the pests that live on the tree: adults, larvae, and eggs. The need for feed in titmouse is very large. She lays eggs twice a season, 7-12 at a time. Chicks are very voracious, as they grow rapidly: in 2-3 days their weight doubles. Parents have to work tirelessly to feed their offspring. During the day, they fly up to their nest with food about 400 times, destroying about 10 thousand insects during the feeding period, of which 30% are pests, including codling moth caterpillars. During the breeding season of the codling moth, sometimes whole flocks of tits appear in the gardens, flying from all the surroundings. As a result, the codling moth is exterminated almost completely. One pair of tits can clear about 40 apple trees from pests over the summer.

For the winter, tits do not fly away and continue their useful work, clearing the garden of wintering forms of pests, for example, pecking eggs of the ringed silkworm, golden tail caterpillars, etc. The great tit is a forest bird that has not yet forgotten its forest skills. She prefers to nest in her natural habitats - in the forests. She comes to gardens only to feed. Fruit trees with their sparse crown, poorly protecting the nest from bad weather, do not seem to her a reliable refuge. But if you hang a tit house in your garden, then it is possible that the titmouse will settle in it.

In autumn, tits leave their nests, unite in nomadic flocks and fly closer to human habitation in the hope of finding food.

The titmouse, which got its name from its blue cap, has a short beak like strong tweezers.

It is very convenient for them to peck small eggs of insects from the branches, to tear off scale insects that have stuck to the bark.

Gray flycatchers, coot redstarts, and white wagtails nest in or near human habitation.

From forest birds, rooks have also nailed to human habitation. For old times they make their nests in tall trees and often, like jackdaws, create large colonies numbering from a dozen to a hundred nests. Rooks feed mainly on insects, of which 50-70% are pests living in the upper layers of the soil: caterpillars of gnawing scoops, beetles, wireworms. In the stomachs of rooks, sometimes several dozen wireworms are found. The rook digs so hard in the ground with its beak that the feathers at the base of the black beak are wiped off and a characteristic light border forms. During the period of feeding chicks, a pair of rooks daily transfers 40-60 g of insects to the nest.

In the case of mass reproduction of pests in the fields or in gardens, rooks can provide invaluable assistance to a person. In large flocks, they flock to places of accumulation of insects and indulge in a feast until the garden is completely cleared. The rook is a rather large bird, and if he has an opportunity to profit from a vole, he will not miss this opportunity.

In the gardens you can also meet those birds that arrange their nests on the edges, in rare light forests, in bushes. These are the little thrush, several species of thrushes, greenfinch, goldfinch, linnet, warbler.

The sonorous trills of warblers can be heard late in the evening or at dawn, and sometimes even at night.

The gray warbler living in the bushes is an exclusively insectivorous bird and also not the last songbird.

Some of the garden birds are so-called sedentary, that is, they do not fly anywhere, and some are migratory.

The settled ones include jackdaws, gray crows, sparrows, tits, blue tit, goldfinches. In winter, they all move closer to human habitation, where there is always something to profit from. Although they look for wintering insects on the trees, they certainly lack this. And here berry bushes can become a great help to them, on which berries are preserved even in winter. Having somehow managed to get through the winter, in spring these birds are in a better position than migratory ones, since in early spring, in the absence of competition, they occupy best places for nesting. During the summer they have time to breed two or three broods. Since mid-February, you can hear the wedding song of the titmouse. It consists of two notes and sounds like a joyful bell announcing the approach of spring (although they make nests much later).

Of the migratory birds, the rooks are the first to return. They confidently fly to their old permanent nesting sites. They are followed by starlings, also early spring birds, flying not very far for wintering - to the Crimea, to the Caucasus, although some of the starlings prefer to spend the winter in North Africa. Finches, greenfinches, wagtails, gray flycatchers, blackbirds fly away and return early. Almost later than all from afar, from Central Africa, barn swallows - killer whales arrive.

In former times, their arrival served as a sign to the peasants that the harsh morning frost passed and you can start sowing.

The swallows' ancestors lived in the mountains and built their nests under the ledges of the rocks. In barn swallows, this ancient instinct is expressed in the fact that they stick their nests glued together from clay and blades of grass to the walls of houses under the ledges of roofs, and sometimes even inside buildings.

Swallows can rightly be called children of the air. They spend most of their lives in flight, and do not walk on the ground at all.

And they get food in flight, grabbing mosquitoes, horseflies, flies, butterflies, small beetles, flying aphids on the fly. They also feed their chicks with this flying midge. In bad weather, when living creatures hide in shelters and do not fly, swallows are forced to starve. Because of this, their chicks grow more slowly than those of other birds, they sit in nests for up to 30 days (for other birds, 12-16 days). It is estimated that during the period of feeding chicks, one swallow consumes up to 130 g of insects, and over the summer it catches a total of 0.5-1 million midges.

At different types For garden birds, the time of laying eggs and feeding the chicks does not coincide, and as a result, it turns out that during the summer they seem to pass the baton to each other in supervising the garden and catching pests. At every moment of the summer season, birds of one kind or another are in the stage of feeding their chicks and, therefore, in the stage of increased hunting.

The attitude of birds to the Colorado potato beetle deserves special attention.

The bright color of the beetle and its larvae in itself indicates that they are inedible for birds. They have no need to hide, the birds will not touch them anyway. Once a bird tastes the Colorado potato beetle once and is convinced of its disgusting taste, it will not repeat this mistake a second time. Scientists have experimented with big amount species of wild and domestic birds, and did not find a single one among them that would be tempted by the Colorado potato beetle. In the Voronezh region, a family of turkeys with poults was released into a potato field, and they grazed there all day, looking for insects, but did not touch the larvae of the Colorado potato beetle, although the potato bushes were strewn with them.

American farmers, on the other hand, note that wild partridges often visit their potato fields and peck the beetle with pleasure. Obviously, an American beetle is familiar to American birds and not familiar to European ones. Indeed, in Europe, including Russia, it appeared relatively recently. True, sometimes one hears that we also have a bird that does not disdain the Colorado potato beetle - a guinea fowl, but this needs to be verified.

If you have poultry, you can conduct such an experiment: mix the larvae of the Colorado potato beetle into the feed for chickens, ducklings, etc. Maybe then they will get used to its taste and they can be released to graze on potato fields infected with a beetle.

The fact that birds protect gardens from pests has long been known, but when scientists undertook to calculate how much birds eat, the numbers turned out to be amazing. Eating insects, birds, of course, do not distinguish between harmful and beneficial ones. They eat everyone. However, studies have found that gardens are dominated by harmful insect species. For example, in one of the gardens where such studies were carried out, 70 species of insects were found in the crown of an adult apple tree, of which 71% were pests, 17% were beneficial, and the rest were so-called neutral. Therefore, in birds feeding in gardens, most of the food is pests, of which 60-90% are caterpillars and butterfly pupae, 10-30% are beetles.

Here are the results of research conducted in the gardens of Moldova. We will give only those of them that relate to the nesting period, i.e., the period of the most intensive hunting of birds for insects. So, it was estimated that there were about 2 million insects per hectare of gardens with a total weight of 250-350 kg. Of this number, birds destroyed 1.1 million insects with a total weight of 140-180 kg in three months, of which 42% were pests and 12.8% were beneficial insects. Birds ate 2-2.5 kg of insects per day. These numbers are impressive. And yet, as we see, the birds are not able to cope with the entire armada that inhabits the gardens. This is explained by the fact that even in large gardens, birds do not nest very willingly, and even more so in small garden plots. In garden plots, according to scientists, the number of nests is approximately two times less than in large gardens.

How to attract birds to your garden - this question has long occupied the minds of gardeners, and they still came up with something and even apply it. First of all, these are artificial nesting houses. In such houses, the so-called hollow-nesting birds willingly make their nests, that is, birds that naturally arrange their nests in the hollows of trees: tits, starlings, wrynecks, redstarts, flycatchers, sparrows. The most simple are titmouses, which can populate not only tits, but also other hollow nests of suitable size.

Sinichniki are made of lightly planed boards of soft wood 1-2.5 cm thick. The size of the bottom is 12x12 cm, the height from the bottom to the roof is 25 cm, the diameter of the notch is 3-3.5 cm, the distance from the notch to the bottom is 18 cm, the height of the suspension is 1- 3 m. The roof is made removable and protrudes 4 cm above the notch.

Wood or grass dust is poured at the bottom with a layer of 1.5 cm. After the end of the season, the roof is removed and the remains of the old nest are cleaned out. The letok can be round or square, facing west. Titmouses are hung at a distance of no closer than 15-20 m from each other, so as not to create competition for birds for food.

The dimensions of the birdhouses are somewhat larger: the bottom is 16x15 cm, the height from the bottom to the roof is 30 cm, the diameter of the notch is 5 cm, the distance from the notch to the bottom is 24 cm, the suspension height is 3-5 m. see Under the houses they make protection from cats from barbed wire, prickly branches or a collar made of tin.

In the first year after hanging, sparrows mainly settle in bird houses, but later they can be replaced by those for whom they are intended - starlings and other birds. Female starlings are quite belligerent and will not hesitate to drive the sparrows out of the birdhouse they have chosen and even throw out the eggs that have already been laid.

For birds that make open nests in natural conditions, the main attraction condition is hedges of shrubs of various heights, at least 2-3 m wide with uncut grass under them.

Hedges should be varied in species composition to satisfy different bird tastes, and include thorny bushes (rose hips, hawthorn, barberry, blackthorn), berry bushes and trees (goof, elderberry, shadberry, mountain ash, wild cherry and apple tree). In addition to attracting birds with food, berry bushes wild species play another important role: they distract birds from cultivated fruit and berry plantations. Birds and humans do not have exactly the same tastes. Man prefers juicy sweet fruits, and birds love sour small game. Therefore, if enough wild birds are planted around the garden to provide food for the birds, they will not touch the cultivated trees. All bird robbery is due to a lack of food.

An American gardener tells how he was forced every year to enter into a competition with birds: who will harvest the strawberries and cherries first, and often suffered defeat, since most of it went to the birds. However, having carefully studied the habits and tastes of birds, he began to plant in his garden among fruit trees and around the garden wild berry crops that grew in those places. As a result, he received several wins at once: the birds stopped pecking at cultivated fruits and berries, wild berry crops greatly decorated the garden with their flowering, and the birds that settled in the plantations cleared the garden of pests. To this we can add that among these birds there were also songbirds, who delighted his ears all summer. And lastly, flowering shrubs attracted a lot of pollinating insects to his garden.

Berry bushes are also beneficial in that they to some extent replace the winter feeding of birds. Not all gardeners visit their gardens in winter time and cannot regularly fill bird feeders. The one who can do this must ensure that the feeders are always filled, as the birds forget the empty feeders and stop coming for food. The composition of the feed includes sunflower seeds, wheat and rye grains, oats, millet, unsalted lard, pumpkin seeds, melons. Open feeders are placed under a canopy or make special feeder houses with a roof. In summer, drinking bowls with water are placed in the garden. All these measures to attract birds - artificial nests, hedges and feeders - lead to an increase in the number of birds in the garden by 1.5-2 times and, accordingly, to an increase in the number of pests eaten by them. For example, it was found that in the garden where the attraction of birds was carried out, the number of pests decreased by 50-60% in the spring.

In conclusion, we note one more detail related to birds. Empirically, scientists have found that bird singing has a beneficial effect on plants, and this coincidence is not accidental: bird trills sound loudest in late May - early June, when intensive plant growth occurs. Only males sing. Each species of bird has its own characteristic song, but the artistry of its performance depends entirely on the individual abilities of the singer. Particularly talented singers diversify their simple song with many variations, short and long trills and laps. It is noticed that with age, singers improve their singing gift. In addition to the nightingale and the aforementioned warbler-robin, whitethroats, finches, goldfinches, greenfinches, linnets can please with beautiful singing. Birds can deliver many wonderful moments and unforgettable experiences.

From the book of N.M. Zhirmunskaya "Garden without chemistry"