Post #24 Feed the Birdie

Blackbirds love cheese 🙂  I had a bird table at my last house, but left it behind when we sold & moved.  Then I lived with my son, his wife, small back yard & a cat or two so it wasn’t really fair to attract birds into the garden.  Since moving here to my own home, a bird table has been on my shopping list.  When the weather turned to ice & snow, I left bird food on the top of a wheelie bin at the bottom of the garden where I could see the birds from my window.  Perhaps not as attractive to look at as a bird table, but at least the birds were fed, & that’s what matters.

How do the birds know where to come for food when it’s not been there before & how do they know it’s edible?  Is it extremely keen vision or do the birds see you pottering about, leaving scraps behind?  No sooner as I’d put a mix of crumbs, cheese & sultanas on the bin & retreated to the house, I was watching a blackbird tuck in.

The following day, the fourth with snow on the ground, a number of hungry seagulls were wheeling around my garden, beady eyes on the food.  However it appeared that there was insufficient room to land on the bin as they soon departed.

At a previous house many years ago I remember watching a sparrow hawk plummet into the hawthorn hedge immediately outside the window.  It quickly grabbed a sparrow & flew off, almost before I realised what had happened!  In the garden of another home, there was a holly tree full of red berries until one winter afternoon a flock of birds descended & loudly stripped it bare in a matter of minutes.  They were bigger than sparrows, but smaller than a thrush & later research revealed them to be redwings, a member of the thrush family.  According to RSPB information, redwings overwinter in the UK, but are rarely seen in gardens, except when snow covers the fields, their usual habitat.  We were privleged to witness their brief arrival & fight to prevent starvation.