A tale of two feeders

I bought a nyjer seed feeder for my birds this week.
My motivation? To encourage some of the goldfinches from the neighbouring woodland into my garden to join the party.
At £1.25 from Wilkos, I thought it was worth a try. One of my Twitter friends said theirs worked a treat and the goldfinches are regular visitors to their garden nowadays.
Having filled it full of the tiny black seeds, I nailed it to the shed.
It's safe to say it did initially generate a lot of interest from the great tits and blue tits - even the nuthatch came and had a look - but, with the exception of one or two blue tits, none of them managed to master the art of standing on the little green perches and feeding from the hole in the tube.
Meanwhile, the peanut feeder at the opposite end of the shed continues to be oversubscribed with a steady queue of woodpeckers, nuthatches, coal tits, great tits, blue tits and even a robin managing to cling on and feed.
Underneath, the chaffinches, dunnocks, blackbirds and occasional magpie, jackdaw and pheasant feed off the crumbs dropped on the ground.
Cut back to the other end of the shed...
Nothing.
I'll go back to the drawing board and see if I can find another feeder that would give the tweetlets easier access.
They look interested, but not interested enough to persevere.

Birds: a minute in my garden

Birds in my garden - 10 January 2011 from Roz Tappenden on Vimeo.

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Garden birds: making new friends

I love little birds - the smaller and noisier, the better.
It's incredible how a little wren, as tiny as it is, can make such a loud sound.
One of the most exciting things about my garden is the birds. The southern perimeter is surrounded with Rhododendron hedge where the birds love to hide.
Already I have seen a young green woodpecker and a kestrel on my lawn - although not at the same time. I suspect the kestrel is on the look out for one of the mice which live at the end of the garden.
Other species I have seen include wrens, great tits, blue tits, chaffinches, song thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, goldfinches and my very own robin, whose favourite spot is on the gable end of my shed.
In nearby woodland I have also seen jays, long-tailed tits and buzzards.
As my vegetables began to emerge, the great tits in particular could be seen hopping up and down the rows of rocket and mixed leaf salad, picking off the bugs and flies.
To make the garden more bird friendly, I bought a terracotta dish and filled it to make a bird bath and put out a few crumbs but I quickly abandoned putting any food out because it seemed to attract magpies. Instead I have bought a half coconut shell packed with seeds which I will hang from the eaves of the house (just as soon as I can borrow a ladder).