Bird feeding

As well as feeding the crows in the park, I do have the fun of feeding the birds at the Reserve every now and then.

These birds are somewhat familiar with humans and do associate us with food rather than threat. Not that they are so very keen to be focused upon...

I put food in a huge feeder, some out on a table, and half a bucket on the track down to the Reserve.

The reason for this is not as generous, perhaps, as might at first appear: the bird dudes do a lot of ringing here and want the birds to be using this location. Seems like they might be artificially upping their numbers, but who am I to judge?

There is a further critique of bird feeding in that it can encourage bolshy species at the expense of the more subdued and tentative birds, such that you actually get not just an increase in, say, great tits, but also a decline in, say willow tits.

I spoke to a bird ringer the other day who described great tits as horribly aggressive. She says they will peck out the eyes of blue tits. But this is when the birds are trapped in a mist net, it's hardly their normal behaviour.

This is a female chaffinch. She was talking to herself and seemed a very calm person. I liked her very much indeed.