My Bird Friends

So I am, of course, still feeding my little feathered friends.  A few weeks back Mr and Mrs (the Magpies) appeared with some short tailed Magpies that squawked a lot and over time I have seen more and more of them and eventually I found out there were three offspring.  But they were noisy!

Whenever Mr and Mrs made it to the bird seed they ate like birds possessed and didn't fly off with any food at all.  So no little bird seed stashes.  And the youngsters didn't get fed any of the seed either, even though they stood there and sqawked.

I kinda figured that maybe the seed just wasn't really suitable for the youngsters, so I brought some meal worms.  I really didn't want to, because they are icky....  and not cheap, but I figured a little bonus might help my Magpies through this tricky patch of two feeding five.

I put down a pile of meal worms and watched as the Crows and magpies walked past it and looked at it.  The Magpies were much more curious and when the Crows had disappeared, one of them tried a few and was soon tucking in with great relish and then started flying beakfuls away to feed the youngsters.  Success!

Except of course it didn't take the Crows much longer to realise that this was food and then they started dominating the meal worms too, or at least trying.  Very soon all five Magpies were coming to feed, which was lovely to watch.  And now the youngsters are starting to half heartedly eat a little seed too.

But now the Meal worms are gone and I shan't buy any more, despite how much they loved them.  Because not only are they too expensive to buy all the time, they are dangerous too...

One day a Herring Gull came to visit and where it would allow itself to be run off the seed, it was rather imobile when it came to the worms.  Nothing the Crows could do stopped it from shoveling them down it's throat.  Of course I don't have a problem with Gulls but I know well enough that if they are start feeding regularly, I would be asked to stop putting out bird food.  On land Gulls are pests and people who feed Gulls make bad neighbours.

But there was another incident too....  The youngsters were there feeding away and one of them was being a little too pushy trying to get to the meal worms that the Crows were chowing down on.  It didn't see what happened exactly but when I looked up, there was a Crow with some black Magpie feathers in it's mouth.  I watched in horror as it spat them out and went back to feeding.  All the Magpies flew away.

Mr came to feed and spotted the feathers and very obviously recognised them and even more obviously got annoyed.  He started chattering a lot and hopping towards the Crows and made them back away.  You could almost see the Crows being nervous in the face of his wrath.

Eventually they all left.  I of course grabbed the feathers....  Four beautiful irridescent down one half of one side....

The Magpies all seem fine and have all come back but the youngsters are very definately not pushing the Crows quite as much.

They are such clever birds and anyone who tells me they don't have emotions....  I kow they communicate too.  One time a Crow was feeding when another flew up and squawked something and they both flew off.  Imagination or not, I could almost hear the Crow on the ground being told there was some nice fresh carrion somewhere....

The Jackdaws have been visiting more too which is nice to see.  They are slowly getting less nervy.  They have young too, all scrawny necked....

Most of the adults have started to moult now and are looking a little scruffy.  I have added some Herring Gull undercoat fluff feathers, a Magpie Tail feather and a Crow wing feather to my collection.

By putting out seed, no one group gets left out.  There is more than enough for the Crows and they don't mind letting the Jackdaws and Magpies have some too.  I know when they are less hungry, a lot of it gets taken away and buried for later and that is fine...  I know that their caches will see them through weekends and holidays.

But they are clever birds, they know I am not there everyday.  They know me and my car now.  They know what time I arrive, what time I leave and when I have lunch.  Sometimes a group of Magpies will sit and seranade me as I sneak back in the back way after lunch.  They are clever birds, the cleverest...