Winter Lunchtime

We're plunging into winter, with the first hard ground frosts, increasingly short daylight hours, the leaves stripped from the deciduous trees, forecasts of snow to low levels, and the small birds desperate for a square meal - which is why, every lunchtime, we eat our meal in the sun room which overlooks the front garden, where we scatter a liberal helping of mixed seeds.

Our resident small birds know that this happens around 1pm each day and are lined up in the laburnum, redcurrant and other shrubs which overlook the patio, all ready to pounce almost before I'm out of the door. The house sparrows, along with the dunnocks, seem to be best at this timing, followed by the chaffinches and our resident robin, with the blackbirds way behind. The tits don't bother - they take advantage of the peanut feeders the sparrows have abandoned.

The dunnocks may be quick to arrive but they are given a hard time by all the others so are often to be seen looking for the scraps long after the mob has finished. They're easily recognised by their pink legs and the way they ruffle their wings as they move around. I have a soft spot for them: they're the most unassuming of birds until they get into an argument with their own species, when they can be quite forceful.

Most of these birds would probably get along quite well without the seeds we put out - with the exception of the sparrows: there are so many of them that the whole gang would struggle to survive if we stopped feeding them.