How to Use a Feeder

While I was working today (from home), I did take a few minutes to watch the antics of the birds around our feeders in the garden.  It is always interesting to see the different techniques they use to grab the sunflower hearts.  In the main the technique is species specific, though there are always those individual birds who buck the trend.

This female chaffinch isn't able to grip the mesh on the feeder, allowing herself to graze at her leisure, as her cousin the goldfinch can do.  Instead she flies up to the feeder, making an attempt to snatch a bit if food, before flying off to a local branch.  I've also noticed that most of the tit family, while they are able to grip the feeder, prefer to take the food back to a branch where they expertly place it between the branch and their foot, then gnaw away at it with their beaks.

The latest I have seen is a blackbird, trying the same technique as the chaffinch, so far with little success.  I look forward to capturing the blackbird succeed.