This afternoon I watched in amazement as a dunnock hopped over to a sparrow sitting on the feeder and pinched it's food straight out of it's beak! I watched for a few minutes more and saw it going up to all the birds and checking their beaks for food! It wasn't worried what kind of bird it was - robin, sparrows, chaffinches... And the other birds let him! Has anyone else seen this behaviour from a dunnock? It certainly gave me a laugh!
Hi Peanuts
Never heard of that before, how funny and must have been really entertaining to watch. :-)
Regards
Kerry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kezmo6310/
Hi Peanuts,
I have quite a few dunnocks but have never seen that before. I'll keep a good look out tomorrow. Cheeky little thing!
Cheers, Linda.
See my photos on Flickr
I've never seen that - do you think it's a youngster from this year? Maybe he's a little immature or taking advantage and pretending to be a chick .
I have a cheeky Dunnock who sits on the garden chair on my patio and chirps to my pet conure (bird) who watches the birds from the window. They are firm friends now, Kiwi says "hello" to him & it's really sweet.
You might be right. It did look to me like chick type behaviour but he wasn't doing it to other dunnocks! And it was strange that the other birds let him. I've never seen a dunnock up on my feeder post before so that was really unusual too. He didn't seem to know what to do. He had a perch on the fat ball feeder and then jumped off again beside the sparrow and pinched his food off him without protest of any kind from the sparrow! We've always had dunnocks around but never near the feeders and they always seemed quite shy. However in September I took on some ex-battery hens and the dunnocks are forever in their run pinching their pellets! I can go in there and walk around and they just carry on hopping around the run, picking up bits of corn, etc totally oblivious to me being there! (The pellets are laced with cod liver oil and poultry spice so they will be very healthy dunnocks!)
That's really funny your bird making friends with the local wild birds. My wee birds don't seem to be bothered by the new big birds but the visiting pheasants seem a little put out!
No prizes for guessing what I'll be doing tomorrow! I'll be sat in front of the patio door waiting for 'baby' to appear!
I agree that's very strange behaviour for a dunnock to go on a feeder pole, mine sometimes perch on a Camelia bush which is about 1.5metres high but would never go on the bird table or feeder pole. Mine are quite shy hiding in the bushes when I go in the garden so it must be amazing to see them in your chicken pen.
Kiwi is fine about all of the birds, as a small parrot he is quite clever and has been taught that they are 'nice birds' but he hates much larger birds than him like magpies, crows and seagulls (which get screeched at). I get lots of seagulls as I live near a Zoo and the sealions' fish attracts them. They are here all year round.
I will put a pic up of Kiwi talking to the garden birds when I can figureout how to do it.
Hi Birdmum,
Just press the little green icon on the grey band above the area where you write a message. It says "insert media) You can then browse to find where the picture is on your computer, and off you go.
Oh thank you sparrow - i'd have never have found that :-S