June 17 2001

A young Great Tit came to the feeder today. His full frontal yellow colour has not developed yet but the black mark under his chin is quite visible and marks him out as a Great Tit and not a Blue Tit. A Greenfinch came to the feeder today as well. We're not getting as many of them as we used to a few years ago. I wonder why. I don't think that it is anything that I have done, but we just don't get them. If you want birds in your garden you can attract them in by ensuring that there is a variety of food available to them. Wild-bird seed is good to spread on the ground. It is a good mix of different seeds and therefore what won't suit one species of bird will probably suit another. Little bits of fat can be thrown on the ground as well. The best way to get the fat is first to have a Boiled Fry with a couple of rashers in it. Don't eat the fat off the rashers but seperate it from the rasher on the one hand and from the rind on the other hand. Then chop up both the rind and the fat and distribute liberally in the garden. Some birds will eat the rind and others will eat the soft fat. Typically the robins and the blackbirds and the magpies. You should also make sure that there is a bucket of water in the garden full to the top so that the small birds can reach the water without falling in. I'm not in favour of platform types of bird table. Birds landing on such a table cannot see the ground below it. Cats are fairly smart too you know. They will sit motionless at the foot of the supporting stake and wait for a bird to land on the table. They will then leap up unseen by the bird and make a swipe at the table with a hooked paw. Their success rate is high. I've seen it happen. My bird table is not a table atall, atall atall. It is four thin stakes stuck into the ground at the corners of a 1 foot square. The tops of the stakes are connected by transverse bamboo sticks which act as perches. There's about 7 of them. You can hang feeders from some of these, or slices of bread etc. The beauty of this arrangement is that the birds can see the ground at all times. Ehhhh, what's a boiled fry Dad. A boiled fry is a fry with all the baddies taken out of it and a few extra goodies put into it.