Birds feeding from my hands

I have had blue & great tits feeding off my hands at Glasgows Botanic Gardens on a number of occassions.  

Has anyone had a robin feed from their hand ? As I have always loved them & that would be a lovely experience.  .

Is this a sign of how tame, friendly or used to humans they are, as much as I enjoy it I do appreciate they are wild birds. 

  • Hello Jill, that would be some experience indeed. The Robin and blackbirds in my garden can get very cheeky and come quite close to you when getting fed. Only yesterday the Robin flew almost at me when I was filling the feeders.They will hand feed, it just takes time. Feed in the same place, start with food on the ground, then in a small container and pick it up off the ground a little higher each day, hopefully the Robin will come to the feeder from your hand, then eventually put the food in your hand, he will maybe hand feed then. You will get good advice from folks who have had this happen. I am still waiting! In the white search box at the top of the page, if you type in anything you want to see or find, you should get a link, from the posts it brings up. Good luck.
  • Hi there, Catlady,

    NEW POSTER to this R.S.P.B. posting - thread - Forum.
    Sadly I haven't got a garden as I am in a flat.
    So the Botanic Gardens is my garden.
    It has a few spots the birds seem to frequent.

    Only problem is passers by with noisy kids, or dogs.
    As well as the pigeons & very tame squirrels running up your leg when you dont expect it.

    Took me a couple of hours to get some video footage of the blue + great tit feeding off my hand.
    Seen a few robin's very close up.
    Just not on my hand . . . . Yet!!!!

    Pity you cant post photos alongside your text ?
  • .@Jillf.."Pity you cant post photos alongside your text ?"

    Click....... Use rich formatting (bottom right in blue)

    Click...Insert

    Then.. change the boxes to read as

    Then click  the BROWSE tab to select your pic from your saved destination

    Click OK and it will appear under your text.

    Hope this a help.

  • Oh okay Jill, you can enjoy them at the botanic centre then and hopefully you can manage to post the pictures here, following SK2 information. If you have a balcony you could put up a couple of feeders, maybe even a window one, some do this,but you then have mess to clear up and you also don't want to attract vermin, if you cleared up each day though, I would have thought it should be okay.

    By the way welcome from up in Caithness, up at the very top of Scotland.
  • Hi Jill, I have had Great Tit's Blue Tit's, Coal Tit's and Robins on my hand the longest was a Robin he was on for four minutes this is why we call him FMR four minutes Robin, last year and this year is no exception, Hazel might still have the clip she took of him on my hand with her phone, but here is one I took at the end of last year I have another on my phone that I have not downloaded yet.

  • Had this blue tit on my hand. 

    "Blue Tit Bliss" as I called it as it melted my Heart heart.

    The simple pleasures in life really are what we all seek.  

  • As a young kid I would go to Cornwall on holiday every year in august, And we would always visit padstow and at the top of a really steep hill would be a crazy golf course with a sort of cafe that you would sit outside at the end. And with out any hesitation robins would come sit next to you even land on your plate to try and steal a crumb they did this every year

    This post brought back some good memories! I wonder if the cheeky robins are still up to no good
  • Special moments indeed Jill and well done on posting the photo. Since the upgrade in the back end many of us are still trying to get to grips with certain simple things!
  • Thanks "catlady" 2nd time lucky. Thanks for the tip.
    Is there a way to increase the font size or type i.e. italic, or bold ?