Musings From the Bower 4

Goodness me, the view from the bower has been hectic these last few days – our (very) tiny garden has been inundated with birds. A family of coal tits fledged, and the proud parents brought the babies to show them where the restaurant was. The blue tits fledged too, and what with the robins, blackbirds, sparrows, starlings, collared doves, wood pigeons, magpies and great tits, sometimes it has been like Piccadilly Circus. I haven’t seen my favourites, the long-tailed tits, lately, but am sure they will pop in soon. It’s odd that we don’t get finches now – we can hear greenfinches and chaffinches in the vicinity but they don’t call in to see us. Maybe they don’t care for the food we supply, though they must be very fussy as we put out many different kinds of seeds, as well as nuts, mealworms, cheese and other delicacies. My daughter did catch a glimpse of a chaffinch in the garden a few weeks ago, but we haven’t seen him since.

Some of the birds are very difficult to photograph, especially the blue tits and coal tits as they flit about so quickly, but the robin doesn’t mind in the least; in fact, he enjoys posing for the camera. The blackbird is usually okay too, though the wood pigeons fly off with a great clatter and whirring of wings if they see the slightest movement. I often wonder why wood pigeons have such noisy wings. It’s as though they have clockwork motors fitted to them. The magpie is shy, too. I think magpies are beautiful, especially when the sun shines onto their glossy feathers – they are not black and white, they are the deepest midnight blue. Stunning.

At last, after around two years or so, the birds have discovered the window feeder – a transparent plastic box fixed to the glass with suckers and a wire. Until recently it was rarely used, but then a male blackbird discovered it, and several of the other birds followed suit. I was worried at first about the blackbird, I thought his weight would bring the whole thing crashing down but it hasn’t, so far, even when he managed to squeeze himself right inside to extract the last of the mealworms. He is very noisy – when he feeds, his long yellow beak clonks against the side of the feeder and reverberates through the window and around the room.

I was reading recently that the dawn chorus was related to the size of birds’ eyes. Apparently the blackbirds, thrushes and robins have large eyes, so they are awake, and start singing, the earliest – their large eyes mean that they can see in the half light and find their food. Birds such as sparrows, wrens, warblers and finches have relatively small eyes, so they can stay in their beds longer and wait till it’s really light before they sing for their breakfast!