The Annual Weeding-Out

The Diary freely admits that it is a bit of an idiot when it comes to feeding wild birds. Our front garden is a forest of posts and poles from which hang a mass of feeders, many home-made, offering a wide range of avian delicacies. Paradoxically, we also keep two cats, but the older one is too fat and lazy to hunt and the main bird feeders are protected from the younger by a system of wire caging.

This summer, with the warm weather in May and June, saw an unusually large hatch of small birds, like this friendly little goldfinch who, replete with bird seed, couldn't be bothered to fly away when we approached.

Sparrows, chaffinches, goldfinches, dunnocks and the tit families have done particularly well - though we appear to have lost our precious coal tits - and, while they have stuck around, the beautiful yellowhammers haven't been quite as successful as usual. But this has come at a terrible price in bird food, now bought by the sack and delivered to the door by carrier.

So it was with some relief that we welcomed this character to Ormsaigbeg. One of them appears every year, but this one has been expensively late in arriving.

Some people don't like sparrow hawks but the Diary has no problem with them. In fact, it's a pleasure to watch them hunt, flying low and fast along the drystone walls and crashing into the bushes after their prey. All being well, in the next few weeks this one will weed out a high proportion of the small birds, leaving us with a comfortable number to nurture through the coming winter.