Anyway there is going to be a big territorial battle soon I think because this lot are the second batch this summer and they surely all can’t stay in the one area. I only managed to get three of them in the picture (you have to click on it to see the other two).

Also on the bird front, in one of the strange shifts which seem to occur for no particular reason, the siskins have suddenly vanished but we seem to have a lot more assorted tits than a few weeks ago.

We also saw a buzzard being chased by a crow today, and the heron was back on the pond.

It rather reminds me of the Saki story about the Prince who when faced with a choice between having flowers in his garden or pigs, went for the pigs, even though most people would have chosen differently…..

We have lots of young animals about at the moment – the other day I counted eight baby red squirrels chasing about by the feeder, and all the young birds have emerged from their nests. The young tits are very funny; they are as big as their parents, but really just balls of fluff. They can feed themselves at a pinch, but if they get a chance they will still flutter their wings and clatter their beaks to get their long suffering parents to give them fragments of fat ball. We also have loads of siskins now – they are feisty little things – more than capable of driving off chaffinches of twice their own size.

What I would really like to see would be a young badger, but if our pair do have cubs, they don’t seem to bring them for a share of the nightly peanuts.

However one rather amusing thing is that I noticed on the packing when I was setting the pole up that it was ‘guaranteed squirrel proof’. I guess this is aimed at people down south where the local squirrels are grey, common and a bit of a plague rather than up here where they are red, rare (well not rare around here but rare in the country in general) and very sweet. But the pole has failed its guarantee – I don’t know how this little chap managed it, but he got on to the pole somehow and was feasting away on the sunflower seeds.

Anyway – that is the ‘lovin’ it’ part. Today I was in the kitchen and there were loads of little birds on it. I stepped out of the room for about 20 seconds, turned round and there was not a bird to be seen. Then while I watched, a beautiful peregrine falcon swept out from a tree, and sat motionless on the fence post. I’ve never had such a good look at one close up before, but unfortunately it flew off before I could get a photo – and before R had a chance to see it too.

So that is the ‘maybe’ part – I can’t see the little birds being keen on its presence, but possibly we will not see it again soon because around this time last year I saw a falcon at the feeder but it never reappeared.

Anyway – the picture is of the feeder after the falcon had gone but before the chaffinches had returned.

As you can see it is large down to the four large (well fat actually) jays. The little birds are also polishing over their seed at the same time…

Before we went out I filled the large bird feeder with nuts and also put out about 500g on the ground. By the time we came back (about an hour and a half later), the cupboard was quite literally bare and there was a queue of anxious looking birds in the trees and on the fence.

I refilled the feeder (and replenished the ground supply) and within 30 seconds there were clouds of little birds on it, plus four large hungry jays getting the ground nuts. It took them about another two hours to empty everything again.

So all in all they are eating about 1kg of nuts a day when rationed, and they would eat more like 2kg if the feeders were filled up every time they were empty. An expensive business…

Now all of a sudden they are back in force – the feeders are being cleaned out at least three times a day – and they would take more than that if I would let them. This seems odd to me because there is masses for them to eat elsewhere in the garden, as I left a load of flowers to go to seed specially for that purpose, plus there are berries and nuts galore. It is not that they are neglecting the natural stuff because the feeder is easier either – I have just stood at the kitchen sink preparing the vegetables and watching a collection of assorted birds stripping berries from a bush.

Anyway it is nice to see them – R and I have just joined the RSPB. My mum would not approve as she doesn’t like the RSPB since someone there made a nasty remark about cats. Our cats very rarely catch birds anyway – they are more mouse focused…

We have about six to eight jays in our garden – originally we had two, they were joined by another breeding pair this spring, and we think both sets have had young. They are really aggressive feeders on the nuts, I’ve seen one gobble down about 30 in quick succession. They are also reputedly very intelligent – they are related to magpies which are notorious collectors of shiny things.

So this morning there were four Jays all sitting in a row underneath the emptied feeder. I tried to get a photo but unfortunately they are quite shy and flew off while I was turning the camera on. When I came into the kitchen this evening to make our supper there were six of them – and I saw two of them fly at the feeder and buffet it about. Either they are just getting over excited, or they are deliberately putting their weight on the disk at the bottom so as to be able to get the nuts out faster.

As no pictures of the jays – here is one of the empty feeder….

Which is just as much as to say that spring has now arrived. There will be bad weather to come I am sure – and we even had a bit of a frost the other night, but the daffodils and primroses are out, the birds are singing fit to burst, and the frog orgy in the pool continues unabated.

Every day there is something new to look at in the garden – I am not sure what this purple flower is – but it is very pretty anyway.