A while since the last bird feeding note – and now, with cold beginning its bite, the feeds are highly popular. Once again, apples halves rapidly disappear – it seems like yesterday (though it was actually summer) that they languished uneaten. Even more recently, suet blocks which – during October – were rather half heartedly pecked at have vanished.
There are finches – chaffinch and greenfinch – in reasonable numbers, but what dominates the garden is a flock of collared doves. A bird I had thought moved almost exclusively in pairs turns out to flock in the low double figures (at least in our garden)
Our garden remains a notably magpie free garden. Other corvids are frequent visitors, however.
Séamus Sweeney 