If Gilbert White could do it so can I. If you visit a nature reserve there are hides for observation. I have got in on the act.
Before we get down to business, permit a digression. My Twitcher Cousin took me to a nature reserve some years ago. She exhorted me to stay quiet which, reluctantly, I did. It was pretty nippy so I put on my gloves and raised my binoculars to scan the Essex marshes. It dawned on me eventually that it was tactless to have worn my shooting gloves which have the trigger finger cut away. TC thought she would be drummed out of the club.
My “hide” is a directors’ chair in the kitchen and I have been observing the wildlife in my small back garden since I installed bird feeders in the Spring. First, as the jasmine grew around the feeders there was a reluctance for birds to eat. I had thought they would relish a bit of privacy but now I conclude that being surrounded by open space means greater safety. Secondly, there is usually a pigeon on the look-out for spilt seed from the feeder but now a squirrel has joined in. I have moved the feeders to the uncluttered, new, west-facing wall and business is brisk. The salad counter beneath the feeders (parsley, mint and basil) does not interest them.
The menu is Buggy Nibbles, looking pale on the left, and sunflower and canary seed and oats, looking like Guinness, on the right. Both are full to the brim and I await the diners’ verdict. So far I have noticed a preference for seeds over Buggy Nibbles – which are made up largely of beef suet. I will update you with pictures and names from the visitors’ book periodically.
I’m very pleased charity work is beginning well before the Christmas season.
My only reticence regarding the installation of these very generous feeding stations is the ‘signatures’ in the visitors book as they lift off and decide to take a quick “lightner” before flying off – turning ones garden /patio into the beginnings of an early Jackson Pollock painting.
Otherwise highly commendable ….
Owing to the unwelcome attention of squirrels, my mother’s bird feeder is designed to prevent them from eating what is for the birds. It doesn’t seem to work that well. I would get out the old BSA and keep that trigger finger clear of any wool. I shot crows, squirrels and a Jay from my top floor when we lived in London – so long as you fire from inside the house, like snipers, it is unlikely anyone will know.