Small Bird News

Having written, only a few days ago, that we are seeing rather more of our less common birds, we're now seeing them in gratifying numbers. It may be the lengthening days - sunrise this morning was at 05.07 and sunset will be at 19.25 - or it may be the increasing warmth - the temperature this morning managed to reach 12C - but there's a feeling of excitement in the air at the imminent prospect of the new breeding season.

The picture above shows a male siskin risking his life by sharing a feeder with a somewhat irritable greenfinch.

The change has also brought more goldfinches into the garden which - at last - are beginning to show interest in the niger seed, of which we still have a large bag full, so they have a lot of eating to do.

To cope with this increase in traffic I tried deploying this seed feeder, designed largely for the tits, but the temptation was too much for a....

....house sparrow who tried to get at the food and, as a result of his efforts, become trapped by his foot.

The chaffinches have discovered how to access the sunflower seeds in another of the exclusive tit feeders, which worries me very little when compared with the....

....attacks which the jackdaws are launching on any of the feeders they can reach. They're both greedy and clever, so they found their way in to the new seed feeder within a day of it being deployed, and stole all the food.