ANOTHER GARDEN VISITOR

There are three grey squirrels which visit the garden from time to time and although I don't like them (too much) and don't feed them with squirrel food they come for the dropped sunflower seeds and peanuts. This spherical peanut holder has a lid - somewhere - so it's easy for these visitors to help themselves until I can find it.

The sunflower seed holder is about 5 or 6' away from the peanut globe where greenfinches are feeding. This is the way to get to the bottom of the container. A bullfinch ignores what the squirrel's getting up to.

The tit family and greenfinches hop in, collect a nut and they're away before you can blink. Last year a collared dove had managed to get itself wedged inside the feeder and although I tried to get it out it was impossible with its dainty pink legs poking through the mesh. I put it in the car boot and went to St. Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Haddenham hoping that they'd be able to release it. It's only about 4 miles from home. When I had parked I opened the boot - and, just like a magician's dove, it flew out and away!! I can only imagine that the bumps in the road had shifted the bird enough to let it free itself.

St. Tiggs is a useful place to have on your doorstep, especially when small birds fly into the patio doors and stun themselves. I can't leave them to recover where they are, or bring them indoors, so I take them to Haddenham where they have to be signed over but I imagine they find their way back to their family group. I've tried plastic strips waving in the breeze and bird outlines stuck on the glass but nothing works. The sparrowhawk must have had a headache when he hit the window a few years ago! Not exactly a slow flyer... it did perch for a while before flying away.

The peanut feeder is about 66' down the garden - 11 x 6' fence panels, plus about 10' indoors to my chair... it's trial and error with this new camera at the moment.