SUNFLOWER (HELIANTHUS ANUUS) PLANTED BY BIRDS

As many will know who read my posts, I feed the local wild birds every day of the year.  They all know that this restaurant is open 24/7, even on Christmas Day, and fat balls are available once the weather turns cold.  In return, the birds give me a lot of pleasure—a Great Spotted Woodpecker came the other day and sadly I just missed photographing it.  It's four years since I last saw one.  I love watching the birds come and go and, occasionally, the seeds they drop germinate.  As I use husked seeds, mostly, I get few problems with seeds germinating where I don't want them to and becoming a nuisance, but sometimes a sunflower (helianthus anuus) seed will land in just the right spot, even in a pot (as below), and it is left to grow. 

Bird sown Sunflower - flowering late October 2018

That is the case with this sunflower that I didn't notice until it was quite a good size.  It was quite late in summer when I first noticed it in a pot amid a lot of other pots, and I thought that it would never get the chance to flower.  It's stem was crooked but I staked it to support it and over the weeks it has grown, formed a bud, and the other day the flower opened.  I cannot tell you how pleased I was.  It's small for a sunflower but it's cheery and I am hoping that it will set seed and give the birds something back for giving it the opportunity to exist.  You know, I think I will grow a sunflower or three next year, for me and for the birds. 




The last time a sunflower germinated and grew without my noticing it for a while was in 2014 and I took photographs here: of the rise and demise of the sunflower. 

Small sunflower, planted by birds 2018

You can see below just how small the flower is compared with the leaves.  In the link above, the Rise and Demise of a Sunflower, you can see that the flower was much bigger and it flowered earlier. 

Small sunflower, planted by birds 2018