Befriended

We have had a couple of domesticated interlopers helping themselves to the abundant supply of bird seed in my garden of late.

Due to the incessant rain of the past few days I really haven't been out there to put some fresh food out, besides which they have done a top rate job of cleaning up all the spillages that they make. I'll be so much better off when birds evolve an opposable thumb and stop throwing so much food about!

We had a couple of garden records, the number of house sparrows hit 50 yesterday and we had two males and a female bullfinch in.

So I went out to refill the feeders at lunch time, and I was accompanied by one of the interlopers, who followed me around and was landing around my feet to pick up the inevitable scraps I spilt. Eventually he landed on the shed roof and watched me intently. Being at one with nature I started to chat to him. I held out my hand with some seed and he really came close to landing on me to have some, but just couldn't quite pluck the confidence up, so I put some on the feeder tray, almost immediately he landed next to me and started to tuck in.

You can see how tame he is by the fact this is taken with an iPhone with no zoom. He was not bothered by me in the slightest in the end. So I seem to have a new feathered buddy!