Dear Steve,
Gilbert’s letter 13 is quite a long one. He goes into a level of detail about birds that I could never hope to match. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore birds, far from it.
I love watching the birds. I have a hanging feeder which I fill with mealworms. I tried seed, but they ignore them. I also have a bird table that has seed and mealworms.
I’ve started replenishing in the afternoon and evening. That usually means there is food available early, when the birds are most active.
Take this morning, for example. I came downstairs just after 6 AM. The hanging feeder was two-thirds full.
One problem I have is that, at the moment, any small brown bird is a sparrow. I know that sounds ridiculous. My bird identification skills are very low. I’m not sure what to do about it. I’ve got a pretty good book for bird identification. How do I apply it? I have a spotter scope and Binos. By the time I get to them, any bird on the feeder is likely to have flown.
There were half a dozen birds vying for the four spots on the hanging feeder, a couple of starlings and two sparrows. There were magpies on the shed, pigeons trying to get to the seed on the table.
Also, there was a crow on the grass. There has been a crow for the last few days. I’m really pleased about that. I’ve wanted to make friends with the crows for a while. I’m just not sure how to do that.
The magpies, as much as I like them (they are beautiful birds, and I’ve always had an affinity with them since reading about “the Magenpies” in Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals) are bullies. They frighten off and attack the smaller birds, and the starlings only continue because they overwhelm the magpies.
The crow takes care of that. It wasn’t trying to get into the feeder. I’d sprinkled some mealworms on the path in the hope that the crow would go after them, and it did. When the Magpies turned up, the crow wasted no time in seeing them off.
I don’t want the magpies to disappear permanently, but I do like to see the crow in the garden. I like to see all of the birds.
I just need to put a bit of effort into identifying the smaller birds.
All the Best
Bill
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