They definitely have their favourites in the bird food offerings, starting at the most expensive. Have you seen the cost of mealworms? I'll leave those for others...
I could barely keep up with them on the sunflower hearts front, having to refill the feeder every day and sprinkle some on the wall for the blackbirds. The 1.75 kg bag did not last long. Expensive taste at over three quid a kilo at the local farm shop...
Number two on the list was the peanuts. These lasted approximately a day and a half between refills, but that may have been aided by them jamming in the feeder and me having to periodically give it a shake. I also rescued the broken mesh peanut feeder and improvised a lid from an old jam jar and threaded some garden string through it to hang it up.
My home made fat/bird seed coconut refills also went down well - the blackbirds could get at them. I also ran out of bird seed...
But the nyjer seed has been given a good ignoring. Although I saw finches they were the wrong kind (chaffinches) and were happily going for the sunflower hearts. I have on occasions seen green and/or goldfinches but not at my feeders.
I had hung a lot of the feeders on the railings outside the sunroom, but as we were hunkering down in the sitting room I was not getting to see the birds very much. I decided I wanted a bird feeding station. So I went on-line before the new year to investigate.
I eventually decided on this site, Wild Bird Direct, where I could also bulk buy bird food at more reasonable prices. Feeding station, ground feeder, 25kg of sunflower hearts, 12.5kg of bird seed and three packs of suet balls later...
It all arrived just over a week ago. The garden was still covered in snow and the ground was rock solid. Paul suggested I tried to see if it fitted in the parasol base, but the pole was to thin. I then decided to see if I could get it into the fruit-tree-bed-to-be.
Big mistake.
The paving slab on to the lawn was covered in ice. My legs went straight out in front of me and I went down on to my coccyx. The only thing that slightly aided my fall was my right thumb.
Not only costing me an arm and a leg but also a thumb and a bum!
The pain was excruciating if somewhat brief - I think I went in to some kind of shock. Luckily I didn't seem to have done too much damage and was able to get up. My thumb subsequently swelled up and I had an impressive bruise all the way around it. I still have a small bruise under the nail. Luckily, it hasn't stopped me knitting...
I thought the other part of my anatomy had escaped as I could sit down with no pain. However, I have since found that sitting from a prone position in the bath almost caused my to scream with the switch of weight on to that area. I am now feeling slight pain when I bend down :(
Anyway, over the last couple of days the weather has changed allowing all the snow on the garden to disappear. The ground is now very soft and the bird feeding station has been erected outside the back sitting room window. It hasn't taken very long for the avian population to find it and I can watch them from the comfort of the sofa...
1 comment:
Pound Land have seed at £1 for 1.5kg and £1 for 1000gm the latter seed is £2.54 in ASDA. So you will not be patting your hip pocket leaving ASDA on that product only the ASDA till.Our next door neighbour makes a fuss of feeding the birds during summer but neglects them in winter . So I have to spend more than expected to keep them alive for the spring. She happens to be a White Settler (Southern English).So what else can one expect? Par for the course.
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