I have a lone pied wagtail who visits my garden every day. He has a lme right leg but gets around quite nimbly, sitting on the edge of my wall and balancing on the sides of flower pots. He never goes on my bird table, which has a roof, but often sits staring at it. I assume he is waiting for other birds to knock food off it as he hops around underneath it quite often. Why won't he go on the table himself? do wagtails ever visit bird tables?
This is the first year I have had a pied wagtail in the garden. I have never seen it on the table but it does eat plenty from the ground feeders and the ground. I always make an effort to put food where I know it seems to prefer to look for food.
Hi Whitewing, like Brenda I have one just started to vist me, and he is the same, always eats from the ground, and he loves mealworms, it's all mine will eat, does yours eat anything else Brenda.
There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.
I agree BBB. The p. wagtail does prefer the mealworms, but then it is a bird which eats insects by preference.
My two Pieds (M & F) eat from the tables but the Grey only eats from the ground. Pieds eat mealworms, seeds and sometimes buggy nibbles (suet pellets with mealworms in) but the Grey only eats mealworms from choice (has been known to pick up the odd seed but only when there is a scarcity of mealworms on the ground). All three have been around since early January and show no signs of abandoning me.......yet!
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!
Hi Whitewing,
My little pied has been coming since January and is still with me. He comes every day and eats from the ground. He does keep looking at the table and has been on the fence next to it a couple of times, but has never ventured on it. He eats mealworms from preference, and the odd seed if there is nothing else. I think he also finds small insects in between the paving stones, or at least he seems to find something there. He is an early bird - always there when I first get up, but tends to leave earlier than the others most days.
Cheers, Linda.
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Hi Brenda and Squirrel, thats a relief to know, I'm in and out like a yo yo all day putting a few mealworms down to try and make sure there are some for Mr Piedy at all times, if I put too many out they get gobbled up by the Blackbirds, I can relax a bit more in the knowlege he will make do with seeds if there are none down.