I love the birds that regularly visit my garden. Like all the birds, they keep a watch out for my Ragdoll cat, Alfie. Alfie's now 5 years old and I've never seen him catch a bird yet. In fact, he's a posturer. He makes little shoulder gestures as if he is about to actually do something about the birds invading his garden, but then does nothing. Most of the birds seem to ignore him now. I'm not sure that's a wise thing but as long as they are on the complete bird feeder I bought for them, Alfie cannot touch them. At the base of the feeder are four large pots filled with the Fascination dahlias and Alfie knows better than to jump on my plants. I saw a collared dove this morning and it was having a good look around before landing on the tray that is screwed on beneath one of the feeder. The idea of the tray was to stop birds scattering bird seed all over the place; birdseed which germinates everywhere!
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| Coal Tit on my bird feeder |
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| Coal Tit on my bird feeder |
I understand that the way to tell the difference between a Coal Tit and a Great Tit is that Coal Tits have a white patch on their heads, as you can see in the above photograph, and Great Tits have a black line running down their chests - the males' line is wider and runs far down the chest and the females' black line ends higher up the chest. The things we learn!
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| Blue Tits - easily recognisable with a stripe through the eye |
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| Collared Dove looking out for danger |
And this reminds me that I need to fill up that particular feeder.
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| Feral Pigeon watching me watching it. |
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| Great Tit taking advantage of the sunflower seeds |
Alfie, the resident Ragdoll cat, enjoying a bit of sunshine alongside me.
