Small Bird Report

We continue to welcome new visitors to our garden, including a very pretty pair of collared doves who, as one would expect, spend a great deal of time canoodling, as my father would have put it. They, and many of the other birds, are drawn to the garden by the bird bath which, to be honest, is a bit deep for the smaller ones to bathe in.

Some of the birds are now regular visitors, including, we are happy to report, at least one pair of greenfinches. This is the male, who is suitably green: the female is so pale that, at times, she might be mistaken for a female chaffinch.

This feeder is one of my constructions and was highly unpopular with many of the birds - until we removed the pink top and replaced it with a brown one. It appears that small birds don't like pink.

Many of the birds are now such regular visitors that we recognise individuals, and some are only occasional, like this coal tit who first appeared a few days ago and then wasn't seen again until today.

The starlings continue to be a pain, arriving in numbers and demolishing any food they can get their beaks on, but one cannot begrudge them a bath, which is carried out with considerable vigour.

However, we do draw the line when the local seagulls start using it, particularly as they have joined the group of birds who are 'persona non grata', mainly from the noise they make - it is an exciting time of year for them - and for their habit of dancing on the roof immediately above our bedroom when we're trying to sleep.

However, the biggest pains are two species of the crow family. The jackdaws pillage everything they can get at, attacking the feeders and squeezing their necks through the wire to steal the food put out for the ground-feeding birds. They're intelligent, and if there weren't so many of them and they weren't so greedy, would be interesting to watch. However, if they are a nuisance, they're nothing compared....

....to these bruisers, the local rooks. To the jackdaws' intelligence they add the brute force of their massive bills, using them to knock bird feeders off the branches where they're hanging, picking up and casting aside the wire covers and generally poking their noses into places they're not wanted. To make matters worse, there are so many of them: at time there can be upwards of twenty jackdaws and half-a-dozen rooks in the field adjoining the house. It's like being besieged!