It’s been a while since my last bird feeding note and I have noted a relative silence in the garden of late, except for a resurgence of the magpie population. There is always a summer lull in bird activity. In late June I was away and while I tried to provide feeding during this time (by the brute expedient of putting out a lot more seed that usual) it took a while to re-establish a feeding routine – but when I did, nothing much seemed to come al0ng (at least when I was looking) There had also been a resurgence of cat activity (which I became somewhat more tolerant of)
In recent days there has been a resurgence in feeding, with greenfinches, great tits, collared doves and, of course, corvids prominent. I note no chaffinches so far, which were among the most common visitors a few weeks ago. As before, I find that little and often is the best way to feed.
Our garden is also regularly hedgehoged and a pleasure of recent days has been seeing the spikey (and always larger than expected) beasts slurping down peaches.
Séamus Sweeney 