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Mum has a lot of blackbirds in her garden (up to 15 at times) and inevitably, a few have became slightly tamer than others. During the breeding season and throughout the winter, Mum puts soaked sultanas out in a bowl on the patio and 3 or 4 of them have learnt that if there are none outside, there will be a second bowl on top of the freezer just inside the back door, ready to put out.... from which they help themselves!!
Anyone else have critters that help themselves (apart from the mice that is!! Lol!!)
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
My photos on Flickr
Hi MarJus
Lovely story MarJus
Well I can say he is another handsome boy. Blackies do like their soaked sultanas along with their ripe cut up Green Grapes - not to mention the cut up cheese - must be luxury for them to be so pampered. {smile}
In the past I used to put food into the palm of my hand, and Mr Blackie would sit on my hand and eat his food - with no fear attached. He only liked to sit on my hand if my palm was flat and low down {cute}
I have had a Mrs Blackbird who would chase after a bit of Grape. If i threw it on the ground she would chase it like a well trained dog. She followed me around the garden and Dave too! She liked to sit at our feet at all times - she loved us to bits.
As for help yourself techniques - I put out the Mealworms in a bowl to soak and one particular Blue Tit would come down, and help itself to a Mealworm and fly off. A Coal Tit would do the same with peanuts if I had some sitting in a jug ready to refill the feeders. A bit of a sneaky bit of food theft going on but it is very endearing to watch.
Birds get confident if they get to know you, and they lose their fear of you. Nice to know that wildlife trusts people in that way,
Regards
Kathy and Dave
Rockwolf said: Mum has a lot of blackbirds in her garden (up to 15 at times) and inevitably, a few have became slightly tamer than others. During the breeding season and throughout the winter, Mum puts soaked sultanas out in a bowl on the patio and 3 or 4 of them have learnt that if there are none outside, there will be a second bowl on top of the freezer just inside the back door, ready to put out.... from which they help themselves!! Anyone else have critters that help themselves (apart from the mice that is!! Lol!!)
Great story MarJus. My mother used to get loads of starlings in her garden (must be a family trait!) and they always knew when it was Sunday - "fat from Sunday roast day". There would be masses of them perched waiting on every available bit of fence, bush and tree. And she never finished tipping the fat out of the tray before they were down on the ground snaffling it all up.
The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.
The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!
Not helping themselves to food, but to the house. My mother used to live in a bungalow. She had a bird table outside her kitchen window, which was always stocked with sunflower seeds or chopped peanuts to keep her local great tits happy. One winter, she started to find sunflower seed husks in the house, around the pot of one of her house plants in the lounge, but also hidden away in a couple of corners of the bedroom. Puzzling, but the mystery was solved one day when she sat in the lounge and a great tit flew in, perched on the branch of her orange tree and proceeded to eat a sunflower seed! The bedroom window was open for ventilation, and the bird had picked up a seed from the bird table, flown through the open window and through the house to reach its favourite perch - nice and warm and safe from any dangers! Sometimes the bedroom door was closed, and in these occasions this bird made use of a corner in the bedroom instead.
Gracious! That's astonishing when you consider that most birds, on accidentally coming indoors, flap around like a thing possessed until they get back out again!
Hi all
Fantastic stories, this is another great thread! I have had tame birds in the garden but none brave enough to come into the house to pinch food or stay for dinner! We did have a wood pigeon that literally paid us a flying visit in that he flew in through the lounge patio doors, kept right on going and flew straight out of the open lounge window to the front of the house whilst we were watching tv!
So please keep these stories coming they are a great read!
Kerry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kezmo6310/
Wow! Great stories so far!! Especially love the great tit eating in the conservatory! Brilliant!
Here's another form of self service! This was in Ludlow market!!
He was completely unperturbed by everyone watching him & laughing! The stall holders were far too busy to take any notice!!
Oh! That's excellent - what a cheeky fellow and great photos again MarJus.
A few years back we had a family of ducks who regularly came into the main shopping street. The two bakers shops are practically opposite each other and the ducks would go to and fro between them. They used to actually enter the shop and stand around looking hopeful until the staff relented and threw them a few crumbs!
Hello.
I've really enjoyed the stories and pictures in this thread. We get a lot of starlings coming to feed in our garden and it's always fascinating to see them all lined up on the telephone wires when I'm starting to put the bird food out.
Paul
Warning! This post contains atrocious spelling, and terrible grammar. Approach with extreme edginess.
Now that cheeky fellow you have in your picture takes the biscuit, or the peanuts in this case
It is although he is loving his food before he even gets it at all. so funny to look at.
Is he a Stock Dove or a Feral Pigeon - I wonder?
Love the stories on this thread, so keep them coming please LOL {smile}
We have a robin who comes into the kitchen whenever we leave the door open and helps it self to the high energy mix.
There is a Wren who is a daily visitor to the conservatory (it’s more like an enclosed garden than a conventional conservatory).
By far our most favourite visitor is a pigmy shrew (named Simon!). The first time I spotted it I thought it was a house spider, it was about the same size and moved as fast. The next evening we saw it again and managed to get a better look at it, it definitely wasn’t a spider. It came under the door and skirted around the outside of the room and disappeared into the kitchen.
We were not sure we wanted a shrew in the house so put down a humane trap. It managed to get between the bars, eat the food and make its escape. We then bought a rather expensive humane trap which had a see-saw action and no bars. The first day we put the trap down we caught it. As the shrew was so tiny we thought its territory wouldn’t be too large so we released it at the bottom of the orchard (which is a fair distance from the house).
It was back again the following day and had learnt how to get into the trap, eat the food and get back out (shrews also eat sunflower hearts so it seems).
We now share our house with Simon (we don’t actually know its male), we spot it darting through the house a couple of times a day. We live in an old farm house so there are lots of spiders etc lurking in corners and behind cupbords.
Anything which eats spiders is a friend of mine.
Build it and they will come.