The Birds

A few years ago, after watching an episode of Springwatch, with Bill Oddie and Kate Humble, I was motivated to buy some bird feeders for the garden.

We had them in the back garden, where we could watch the birds feed as we sipped our red wine.

But, the birds did not have any table manners, and spread the seeds from the feeders all over the place. Some of it even took root and we had a variety of plants of undefined type growing in the borders, where Kathleen had decreed that only flowers should be.

So it was no contest, the birds had fallen foul of her who must be obeyed, their feeders were consigned to the refuse bin.

Recently, while felling a tree in the front garden, a neighbour was telling me he had occasionally seen a flock of Goldfinches in that very tree.

This tugged at my heart strings somewhat. Not only had we created a bird starvation area in the back garden, but now I was making a flock of Goldfinches homeless. This combined with the fact that grandson Daniel likes to watch (well ok and to chase) the birds in the garden, when he visits us, similarly I am sure grandson Gabriel will be interested when he visits, clinched it. I decided I would acquire some new bird feeders.

Amazon duly obliged, and four hanging bird feeders arrived within  days.

After a warning from Kathleen, along the lines of "remember the mess we had last time with those things", I had a plan to outwit the birds messy feeding habits, I located the feeders in the lower branches of the large tree in our front garden, so they were over the lawn. Reasoning that any debris dropped would land on the lawn, where regular cutting would prevent it being a problem.

I was taking this very seriously!

I checked the RSPB website to first of all check that the brightly coloured birds I had evicted were in fact Goldfinches, having confirmed that, I went on to discover their favourite food. Nyger seed and Sunflower seed it would appear.

A quick visit to the local pet shop, and I had a bag of nyger seed and a bag of black sunflower seeds.

The feeders were filled, and put in place.

We waited patiently.

Nothing!

But after about a week, presumably when the birds had decided it was not a ruse to further disrupt their lives, they began to visit the feeders regularly.

Now we have an almost constant flock of Goldfinches feeding there, Kathleen is even worried we will soon have a bird obesity problem, and have to provide bird aerobics.

I have tried several times to get a good photograph of the feeding frenzy, to post here, but so far without success, I will keep trying.

The idle pointless things you do when you are retired, great!