It is possible to see most of the garden from the kitchen sink, except the floor of the border right in front of the window which is screened by the honeysuckle trellis and the old beehive – which isn’t a beehive, it’s a garden shed, a very short one. The patch of lawn beneath the cone peanut feeder is readily visible, so that you can see the blackbird, ring doves and chaffinches congregating there to wait for titbits dropped from above, but the shrubs planted around the base of the birdtable and greengage tree mask the earth below. Nevertheless you quite often see birds dropping into the greenery, disappearing from view, presumably either looking for worms, etc., in the soil or scavenging anything that has been discarded by the noisy feeders above. It is undoubtedly an interesting place to search, but it also has an element of danger, should either of the cats escape my notice and lie in wait. Today, a pair of male great tits were working the fat feeders and one in particular seemed to be levering off the white fat topping from inside the three-quarter coconut to get at the fruit and seeds below. It was deliberately dropping the white shards over the edge of the nut and a blackbird nipped smartly into the shrubs to emerge shortly afterwards with a large chunk which it sat on the back of the bench and ate.
The female woodpecker came back, also working her way along the fat feeders, from the three-quarter nut, which seemed too tight to get into, to the half coconut, which didn’t satisfy either, until she reached the wire ball, where she dislodged the trio of sparrows, grasped the wire halfway up and flipped up her scarlet tail as though it was a smart platter for the banquet. It certainly looked to be steadying the ball and making it easier for her to stab at the food. Afterwards she wiped her beak on a branch, but also demonstrated why she is so suited to vertical tree branches. There is a short branch, almost horizontal and with a smooth, polished bark. I have seen the male woodpecker struggle to walk along it and today the little female did the same thing – she waddled a couple of steps, then her feet slid sideways and she lay down on her belly, one foot on each side, to rest for a while.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 