Your Garden Characters.

When I was stlill living at my parents home, we had a nest of Blackbirds in the hedge. Nearby was a stainless steel barbeque. One day we heard a really strange banging noise, and went out to investigate. The male blackbird was hopping around the base of the barbeque, attacking his own reflection! we left him in the hope that he would figure out that it was actually him, but after an hour he was still there. Had to put the bbq in the shed! Also spotted him doing a simelar thing to his reflection in the shed window. He was a funny chap.

I've seen long tailed tits attacking a window at the zoo (their own reflection presumably). I don't get any of this behaviour in my garden though.

From what I can gather from things I have read that is particularly common with Tits.  I've quite a lot of times about Blue Tits with this sort of behaviour banging on house windows...and once a car mirror.

Think some are a bit too territorial! 

Love your story Peregrine and I could see a blackbird getting very upset with his own reflection easily.

Blackbirds are very aware of all things in a persons garden - they see as their patch.  They adapt to changes that a lot of other birds will not tolerate.

They see objects in our gardens, and they take note of the object.  If we move the object and they like to take their time working out why the situation has changed once more.  They are very bright birds.

Considering their size compared with a Woodpigeon, Blackbirds are very with it, and I feel that is why they are such as success story in the bird department.

So a smaller bird (smaller than a pigeon) does not mean they are less intelligent at all - it is the opposite to me.

Regards

Kathy and Dave

The 'character' in my garden is the one and only Robin that comes here.

He is a complete bully and dive bombs the (many) greenfinches and the great, coal and blue tits (that have just started visiting) , he is a real bully-boy ..... not a very nice character really !!!

What a lot of lovely stories.

I am now thinking of putting a mirror in my garden. Maybe the blackbirds will concentrate on pecking at themselves whilst the thrushes and other birds can get on with their dinner!

We have a lot of very cheeky blackbirds in our garden, especially the males. Over the past few years we've raised and released quite a few in the garden, so they may still know us - but even before then we found the blackbirds got very used to our presence. It's getting to the point where you can't even leave the house without being "mugged" by a blackbird. They sit and look at you as you walk through the back garden, and if you go out of the side door, there's usually one on the garage or lounge roof giving you a meaningful look and cocking its head at the empty bit of driveway where there should be some sultanas, but for some reason there aren't, and would you mind doing something about it please?

We also have Lone Daw aka Brown Daw the jackdaw. He appears on his own and doesn't hang out with the other jackdaws, and his primary feathers are still brown. He was a noticeably brown coloured baby in the spring and took a while to moult.

Then there's DodgyFoot. DF was a jackdaw who turned up last year with a broken leg which stuck out and left him having to cope with only using one leg. I hadn't seen him for a few months until the other day when I unexpectedly saw him with some others. The leg has seemingly set, because although the claws are still clenched, he can put weight on the leg and seems to be coping OK.

Hi Maisie,

I was interested in what you say about DodgyFoot jackdaw.

Recently a starling (Hop-a-long) has been visiting my garden. He also has a broken leg, which dangles down. He manages on his one good leg, although occasionally has to use a wing to stop him falling over when he crash lands on my mesh trays. He is round and about my garden all day, and appears to be managing fine, but I was afraid he may get bullied. He has found my front garden ground feeder, and has more room to land on the lawn where that is, but still prefers the mesh trays in the back garden where his starling mates hang out. Your story has given me a bit of hope for him.

This is DF back in May:

Birds are amazingly resilient and cope quite well with one leg. If there's a break, either the bone will set giving some strength to stand on it, even if there's no movement, or, if the nerves are damaged, the leg may wither and drop off.