So funny....

I have resisted feeding the birds for the last year or so. Their food is a magnet for rats (yuck) a creature I loathe. However the very cold weather had made me rethink. So I have subscribed to a couple of feeders and a large bag of sunflower hearts and some fat balls. The one absolute essential about birds is that when you start feeding them you absolutely must continue to do so until the insect and fruit levels are high again, such as summer, so that they dont lose their one source of food. It takes a lot of energy to find your food; it is a big waste of energy to turn up and there is nothing there.... The one thing I had completely forgotten about though is the wonderful characters that birds are. I so completely understand why people enjoy watching them. I have had a family of long tailed tits - my favourite birds. Little balls of pinky grey streaked black and white, and very long tails. Incredibly sociable they are beautifully behaved and love the berry and insect fat balls. The goldfinches are a different ball game altogether. Beautiful plumage hides a positively street fighter attitude. They take the sunflower seeds and then drop half of them on the ground. There is one who has such an attitude problem that it frightens all the others off. I dread to think what it is saying - blue language does not describe it. The great tits on the other hand, take one sunflower heart and fly onto a branch and then gently eat the seed bit by bit. And as for the blue tits, they come in en masse and then find out there is not enough room. Of course, the upside is that all this mess means that there is enough food on the ground for the robins, blackbirds, thrushes, hedge sparrows, chaffinches and sparrows. I have not had so much fun in years watching them..... such a distraction to work! And no sign as yet of the long tailed pest.....