Breakfast-and-supper club

A modest dump of snow – about 3in/7cm – on Saturday night, followed by two days with only minimal thaw, brought the birds flocking in to be fed.  We have a good number of regulars in any case, coming every day for breakfast and again in the afternoon in preparation for the night, but other birds have come in from the fields looking for a quick meal on the patio and round the apple tree, where there are still the last fruits hanging on the branches.  (Not much left now!)

Lefty and robin have breakfast

Lefty, the woodpigeon with the damaged left leg, has recently started to turn up regularly in the mornings for his breakfast (breadcrumbs, usually); this morning he was waiting in sight of the upstairs landing window, watching for us coming down.  We had cleared the snow off an area of the patio yesterday to allow the birds to feed, and he waited there for us; however he’s very nervous of our approach, and flies off when we open the patio doors to throw food out.  It doesn’t take him long to come back, though.

Fieldfare (at the back) creeping up on the blackbirds ....

There are always a few blackbirds around, but today we’ve had about six squabbling over the apples (I’ve left a few windfalls on the patio and under the buddleja, where the snow had only landed lightly and quickly melted, and it’s a sheltered feeding site for them).  Whereas we usually only have one fieldfare down, today there were three, fighting each other and the blackbirds.  Another, very welcome, sighting was a little posse of chaffinches – three males and two females – sitting under the peanut container and picking up the bits dropped by the woodpecker and starlings; finches have been in decline here for some years and it’s always good to see them around.  I haven’t seen a greenfinch all winter, although a goldfinch dropped by a couple of weeks ago in search of old flower seedheads.  Other welcome visitors include the long-tailed tit family, who sometimes turn up at the fatball container at their supper-time.

The sparrows already have nesting in mind, with mating fights going on and several birds starting to take strands of grass into the nest sites under the roof.  The patio robin, another regular breakfaster, is in an uneasy relationship with another robin; sometimes they’re friends and sometimes not.  Today, not.  I’m never sure which robin is which.  The veg patch/bottom of the garden robin seems to have a friend; they’ve been seen in each other’s company a couple of times without any fighting.  I wonder whether it’s the same very trusting robin that was there last year; he (or she) has again been following me around when I’m working in the veg plot.  Last week I spent some time weeding the ‘long edge’ bed and some of the paths, with the almost constant quiet chattering of the robin close by; he did come down to pick up worms where I had turned the soil, but he seemed more interested in following me about, and sometimes I think he just wanted the company.

There have been fewer of our less-regular visitors around.  Blue tits occasionally come by, but I’ve only seen one great tit for some weeks, and today’s coal tit was the first I’d seen this year.  A wren was over by the veg plot wall the other day, and a pied wagtail was sitting on the guttering, but it’s been a while since I saw a bullfinch or song thrush, for example.  Next weekend is the Big Garden Birdwatch; it would be nice to have a good variety of birds appear in the garden!