Some days ago we went to Portuairk to have lunch with friends, and enjoyed the meal the more because, onto the outside of a window right beside the dining room table, they had stuck a feeder full of sunflower seeds, to which the small birds came throughout the meal. The result was the above feeder, made from an old vitamin container, which is perched on the window sill of our conservatory, where we sit for many hours each day watching the scenery - and the birds.
It took almost a week for the first bird to venture so close to the window, and it was this little coal tit. He's been enjoying a feast all to himself until today...,
....when he was joined by a blue tit. These two are way ahead of all the other birds, who continue to squabble over the few sunflower seeds which go out with the mixed grain.
But one has the nasty suspicion that they will, at some point, spot what these two are doing and muscle in on the act. The cost in sunflower seeds is likely to become horrendous.
This picture shows one of the rowan trees beside Port Beag as it was some ten days ago. There's a small grove of these trees beside the croft house, and they promised to keep the local thrushes, blackbirds, starlings and other birds in food for weeks.
This is the same rowan today, stripped of its berries in the space of a few days by the ravening hoards of Scandinavian fieldfares and redwings which we first saw near Portuairk. Very few are left on the peninsula, which isn't surprising since the berries are gone. They've moved on south looking for fresh supplies, leaving our residents looking at a larder which has been emptied.
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