This autumn we let our front garden sunflowers go to seed and left them in the ground. We were rewarded by bluetits and other members of the tit family flying quickly up to them from our neighbours' beech hedge. I would not have thought bluetits able to extract seeds from the heads but a litter of seed cases on the patio proves me wrong. They seem to prefer sunny days and I have not noticed them in the recent frosts.
However, this morning I did notice the long-tailed tits descend in a little flock on the blackcurrant bushes which I had recently pruned. I was cautious this year and did not remove as much old wood as previously so there were plenty of perching places for these lovely birds to land and hop along the branches picking at any surviving insects.
The giant sunflowers by the back hedge continued to flower in the warm start to this month but are now well and truly over, but I think the heads are not sufficiently dry for the back garden bluetits to attempt them.
The male blackbird is eating the red berries of the cotoneaster that comes over our fence from the neighbours.
I shall not be buying any bird food quite yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment