The Last Straw

Enough is Enough One of my 7-year old Koi is dead.

And this evening, another Koi was badly scratched but survived. What happened?

There is an intruder in our garden. In fact, there are seven intruders in total. They kill for fun. Not they are hungry but well fed.

Our birds are also at risk. They all roost around our garden and have made their homes here. They have done so for the last seven years. Our Sunbirds, Magpies, Peaceful Doves and Tailor Birds are wild and flies freely. Until now.

The neighbours have a combined pest of seven fat cats. Not only they used our garden as a place to poop and shit. They have now killed our Koi fish. In our garden pond. And the birds. This evening, another attempted kill. Dear readers, what shall we do? Is it a crime to rid this problem? The particular neighbours do not give a shit what their cats do. They personally 'supervised' MPK to catch and kill stray dogs recently but it is all right for their damn cats to invade our private property to shit and kill. Damn neighbours.

Dear readers just what shall we do? Is it OK to rid this problem in our own property?

Do we wait till another Koi fish to get killed? The birds? Dear readers, just what shall we do?

Resident Magpies

Our Magpies
"Feeding Time"

The Video below shows a feeding session when a parent flies in with a 'grub' to pop it into the 'large mouth' baby. We also noticed that the parent seems to know who gets to eat next!
It is through this video we learned that the babies' dropping (poop) is also being removed and as compared to our other resident bird, the Peaceful Dove, the Magpie's nests are the cleanest.
Thus a re-useable nest!

How we wish humans are 'that' hardworking!!! ;-)

This video is shot on High Definition AVCHD format.

Whoopie!

Our Very First
Wild Bird Seed Feeder!

While looking for washers to fit up my DIY Parabolic Microphone at Ace Hardware in the Ikano Power Centre, PJ, I was stunned to be starring at a Bird Seed Feeder! Please note that usually such feeders are never found here in this country or perhaps the whole of Asia! We were trying to buy one from the USA. They retail it for around USD 8 each but the courier charge of USD80 would put anyone off!
After looking around the section, I noticed some other feeders like the 'suet' type. There were 20 pieces. The suet ones are almost impossible to use because one have to use 'suet' cakes (made of hardened seeds,fruits,fats,vitamins...) In our hot climate, these would have melted down to the ground!
WHOA! this costs RM86.90, such high profit! It is made in China!
So we took the one and ONLY unit!
Luckily it was also adaptable for small and large seeds.
Yesterday, we went to a bird shop in Klang town and look for seeds. We had a hard time explaining to the boss about our wild birds. He has not heard of feeding wild birds with this kind of feeder before! We really can't blame him because all his customers are feeding CAGED birds!

There was a wide array and types of seed!
We chose the popular ones.
Because we have visiting wild birds, I would expect our resident Merbuks (Peaceful Dove) to feed from this feeder.
This would not be easy because the one made for the USA are for finches, Chickadees, Nuthatches and siskins. I would have to coax and lead our to new babies who are already taking flying lessons from the parents.
Our earlier DIY Nectar feeders are very successful and we have 3 of them. Topping the nectar every 3 days draws our five little sunbirds everyday.

Still working our way to feed our resident Magpies (7 of them) who roost here every night.

Could this be the ONLY wild birds seed feeder working here in Malaysia (or in Asia) right now?

Bird Bath Up!

Our DIY Bird Bath is Completed
and Running!

On the upper left, is our DIY Nectar Bird Feeder.

Bought flower pots to mix and match from Lorong Hijau in Sg. Buloh, PJ. It took us four solid hours looking for matching shapes and sizes from various shops!
This is to set up our Bird Bath which is also a water feature.

After glueing up the connecting flexible hose both on the bottom and
on the insides,
and to be connected to a recycled mini-aquarium filter pump, (new one costs about RM12) and is also fixed to an electrical timer (RM9) which is set for 7am till 7pm.
We set it up using a water leveller to adjust the water drop effect.
These five pots cost us RM120 total.
As compared to the one we actually planned to buy (specially made with sand stone) costs a whopping RM680!! Heck! It is so damned commercialised these days.

The bag of washed pebbles cost RM12. It is needed to adjust the depth of the lower section in case some birds do not like deeper waters.
The top water spray can be also adjusted by adding these pebbles so as not to scare the birds.
The first visitors were our resident Magpies who just dashed onto the top part and started drinking from it. Later, one of them took a splashy bath!
The next day, the Sunbirds came and took a sip. As of today, the girl Sunbird is taking strips of coconut fibres off my orchid plantings to, what I suspect, build a nest!!!! The male fellow is busy sipping nectar and cleaning himself.

All these happening under the watchful eyes of a mummy Merbuk tending to her two babies on her nest built on my wall fan directly above!
This is good! The birds are happy!

(Please click on images to enlarge. All images are by author)