We have a robin in our garden. And a good few sparrows.

A few years ago there was a robin that would watch me as I had a roll up out the bathroom window as I don't like the house smelling of smoke, over time it would watch me while I was there & even flew up to the window ledge many times giving me the once over. Since it was so friendly I started to get dried meal worms for it & put them on the outside ledge & it would fly up & look at me for about 1 minute then start scoffing them down. Even had it sitting in my hand a few times eating the meal worms.

This went on for about 6 months then I never saw it again

We get loads of robins, usually squabbling with each other over territory, they are such delightful birds to watch, so full of character.

Yes, I've seen plenty this autumn and winter.

Well I certainly never ever let the dogs chase the cats off lol

I use water pistols laced with lemon juice and chilli, spikes on the fence and anti climb/burglar grease on the fence.

I have visiting sparrows in the hedge (thought I still discourage them from nesting there and cats takes the nestlings), have various tits, thrushes and nuthatches, plus the usual magpies, blackbirds, pigeons etc at the feeder in winter.... though I only put food out when I can supervise and have and anti cat bird table with spikes and wire around the bottom.

Neighbour is watching after my dog left her cat with three legs and incontinent (it got into my lounge tbf!)

Yes they are aren't they . If I'm working in the garden and stop for a coffee I can virtually guarantee that if I've been turning the soil over and left my spade stuck in the ground as soon as I move away our local Robin will be searching through the soil and using the spade as a look-out post

We happened. Our liking for maintenance free gardens, ripping up lawns and hedgerows leaves them with nowhere to feed / nest.

My garden lawn is hedged by thorn bushes, the little birds love them.

The seagulls are on form today though, hoovering everything up.

My garden has hedges on 2 sides and there's a bit at the top that I deliberately let get overgrown so it provides a good habitat for wild things. I'd like to plant mixed hedgerow down the 3rd side, and will discuss this with my neighbour. My stepson is a tree surgeon and knows how to pleach a hedge, so I'm hoping he'll show me how to do it.

We have a robin that is a regular visitor and shedloads of sparrows, plus a very cheeky blackbird that is really bold. He doesn't fly off if I go out to hang out washing or anything, just watches me from the hazel bush.

We also get bluetits, chaffinches and, just occasionally, a jay.

As I've never touched one I'm possibly completely wrong, but aren't dried meal worms quite brittle? I'd be worried they'd get stuck in the Robin's throat.

I have a few regular birds in my garden, robins, thrushes and a few tits. Even seen a couple of Jays a few weeks ago. Bloody cooing fat wood pigeons I could without though.

Robin’s alive and well in my garden here along with many Sparrows, Starlings, Blackbirds, Magpies, Crow’s, Pigeons and a few Pied Wagtails.

Good year for Sparrows, Starlings down a bit this year but everything else about normal.

Not a problem. Dried mealworms aren't that brittle though you can crumble them (they smell surprisingly 'meaty') but birds are built so that they can eat live insects whole, even quite crunchy-shelled insects. You really don't have to worry.

More than usual this year.

We have a Robin who waits on the muck heap every morning without fail. We take a bit of toast down to give our horses and Robin waits for a few crumbs.

Thanks Normandie, I shall erase any concerns I had in my mind about this.

They seem to like beef as well, I hope that's ok for them. I assume it would be if they eat insects, grubs, etc. I was in a park area eating a burger yesterday and a bit of meat fell off it onto the ground and within seconds a robin appeared and took off with it. At first I thought, I hope that's ok for you, but I'm sure it wouldn't eat it if it wasn't!

Read the thread, get some meal worms for it! Bread's, evidently not so good! But, maybe better than nothing, I don't know....

Toast for the horses?! Wouldn't an apple or carrot be better?

They get feed, hay, sometimes carrots and apples but they have about half a slice of toast each in the morning, broken into small squares. Instead of horse treats.

Oh and the mealworms ..... I end up throwing them away quite often because the birds in my garden are not interested in them.

I had one fly into my garage a while back. He was lovely, I named him robin haha
He's gone now though

ive seen a few here in Corfu.

Ah, well they obviously must enjoy a bit of toast in the morning, so great! As long as their happy and well cared for, which it certainly sounds like they are!

Interesting about the meal worms, especially if their dried as opposed to alive and wriggling about and an obvious food source, maybe the birds are confused because they don't know what they are? Shame, as I imagine they'd be great protein for them.

I am loving the image of you holding class surrounded by French robins. Do you think the problem might be the language barrier? Are you speaking to them in French?

yes where I work especially the muck heap needs digging out they're hanging around looking for worms etc

its large old garden with plenty of shrubs, trees with places for them to roost. Modern gardens are all block paving, decking and a narrow strip of grass if you're lucky no room for shrubs and trees and no room for birds.

when I was a kid the garden we had was very mature with plenty of undergrowth and full of birds and birdsong it used to wake me up in the summertime early in the morning and we had a cat too. That type of property has long gone and I havn't heard the dawn chorus for years.

The appeal of worms and other wrigglers transcends the language barrier!

Hedges need to be thick and at least 2m high, preferably higher, to encourage birds to nest in them. Nowadays, big thick hedges in gardens are out of fashion or frowned upon. I have several enormous clumps of brambles which I should do something about but each spring / summer, there are 3 or 4 nests in them and the cats - and martens, rats, magpies and other predators - find it difficult to get at the nests. Then when the blackberries ripen, there's food for the birds too.

We've had "robin wars" in our garden over the last couple of weeks.

We've always had a "resident" robin, we have a couple of sunflower heart feeders with trays underneath to catch any the birds drop, goldfinches being especially messy!! One of them is towards the edge of our lawn the other is hidden from that one behind a yew tree attached to a fence hook, but from our back windows you can see both.

over the last couple of weeks we've noticed a second robin sneaking in to our garden and using the yew tree as cover so he can feed from the feeder by the fence without the "resident" robin noticing. It is fascinating to watch him check the "resident" robin can't see him before having a feed. If he gets caught the "resident" robin soon chases him away.

However last weekend we noticed a couple more robins looking to chance their wing on the feeders as well! At one point we watched a "stand off" with all four robins in the garden at once. In 20 years of living at our house we have never seen that before.

We were sorting out our allotment the other day and there were a couple of robins watching us, keeping an eye out for worms. We put a pile on some wood we have and they happily kept flying back and forth.