The Intelligence of Small Birds

At first sight this may seem an unexceptional picture. A yellowhammer is doing what yellowhammers do - feeding on a cereal crop, usually much to the fury of the local farmer.

In this second picture, a female chaffinch is busy on an ear of wheat. Chaffinches are named as 'chaff finches' - birds that eat the farmer's grain, picking it out from amidst the chaff. But.... Nothing is quite as simple as it appears at first sight, for these assumptions aren't quite right. They don't take into account the fact that Ardnamurchan's small birds are exceptionally bright.

This summer, instead of just eating the grain that was put out on the bird table, grain grown by farmers, they made a point of sowing some of it themselves. As a result, we've had wheat, barley, oats and an assortment of alien crops growing in our flower beds.

Sadly there's one thing they still have to learn - the idea of putting some of the crop away for the winter. It would save The Diary a whole heap of money.