Aerial Arguments

A day of 'Kilchoan sunshine' for a change today, brought in by a warm but damp westerly. At times we couldn't see across the Sound to Mull, so what was going on in the foreground became the focus of our interest.

It's evident that the local small birds don't like this weather at all, so there are many more of them at the bird feeders looking for an easy meal, which leads to a little overcrowding.

There is some tolerance. Normally, a blue tit and a siskin wouldn't be seen dead together on the same peanut dispenser, but these two shared it for some time before they fell out - literally, as they were so intent on scrapping that they fell off the feeder, leaving a space which was immediately seized by another siskin.

Queues built up at some of the feeding stations - here, a chaffinch on the right thinks better of trying to push a young goldfinch off his feeder, while, on the left, a siskin makes an aggressive bid to displace another goldfinch.

Things are crowded in part because there are so many young birds around. In the garden we currently have the young of blackbirds, siskins, goldfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, sparrows, dunnocks and robins, one of which is pictured. In fine weather they spread out across the countryside. If this weather continues, we'll run out of peanuts.