The Lemon Fool

We have an attractive Rowan tree which puts on a lot of flourish, then at this time of year the resulting berries are just changing to orange. And if this year matches all previous years, we will never see them turning to a bright orange, since the birds descend on them and can strip the tree in a couple of days. A flock arrived, and started on their task today, however I chased them off - but they will be back. They really are ungrateful - since I have bird feeders out with fat balls, peanuts and sunflower seed kernels.
Any suggestions to avoid the seemingly inevitable?

Personally, I get more from watching them enjoy what is obviously a special treat (clearly more so than even your best offerings!) than I would from simply looking at ripe berries. I do have an ulterior motive, however. Before the older of our two rowans died, the birds (almost exclusively blackbirds) tended to leave the other one alone until very late on - resulting in many berries dropping on the patio and getting transferred indoors on the soles of shoes. So it's a great relief now that they tend to mop them up before that happens.

I love watching them figuring out how to get to the trickier ones as the berries get depleted. Not as entertaining as the pigeons in the amelanchier though. After the beautiful spring blossom, they are in there almost as soon as the berries form. Noisy and ungainly, I counted nine crashing around at the same time this year - and it's only a small (ten foot or so) tree. They are so determined when trying to get to the extremities that they regularly slip around into an upside down position and actually fall off onto the ground. Then they dust themselves off and try again. Highly entertaining!

No, I think we intrude enough - I reckon we should just let them enjoy their occasional banquets and take some pleasure from theirs.

scotia wrote:We have an attractive Rowan tree which puts on a lot of flourish, then at this time of year the resulting berries are just changing to orange. And if this year matches all previous years, we will never see them turning to a bright orange, since the birds descend on them and can strip the tree in a couple of days. A flock arrived, and started on their task today, however I chased them off - but they will be back. They really are ungrateful - since I have bird feeders out with fat balls, peanuts and sunflower seed kernels.
Any suggestions to avoid the seemingly inevitable?

I think it depends on the species of Rowan. We had a large old Sorbus pohuashanensis (it died about 8 years ago). Like yours, the berries never really got to the red stage, because the blackbirds gobbled the lot. OTOH I see Rowan trees with red fruits hanging late into Autumn. I presume they belong to species with bitter tasting fruit which are left by the birds until they are really hungry.

I think some birds get a taste for particular stages of fruit development. Every year, woodpigeons scoffed all my cherries when they were still green pea sized.

Nimrod103 wrote: OTOH I see Rowan trees with red fruits hanging late into Autumn. I presume they belong to species with bitter tasting fruit which are left by the birds until they are really hungry.

Agreed - I had come to a similar conclusion since I have seen many Rowan trees in the neighbourhood which hang on to their berries.
And I guess that I simply have the best tasting berries - which all the birds in the district feel invited to sample.

So just before all of our berries disappear, here are a few of the flock of starlings enjoying the feast today:-

Its late July, the Rowan Berries are orange-red, and the birds have descended. In today's photo, an old hand has brought along a youngster - teaching it the ropes.



The starlings have been depopulating the berries from the top down, while the blackbirds seem to favour the bottom upwards approach. We may just make it to August before the berries are all gone