Secret Thoughts of a Hungry Greyhound

Macro on Monday - Guess What

A brilliant week for last Monday's Guess What. All eight guesses were correct. My congratulations and a virtual gold star to Bonnie, Jopan, Adrian, Glo, Wilma, ImaBurdie, TexWisGirl and Shirl. It was indeed a clothes peg / pin:

I wonder how many will be able to identify this week's puzzle photo.

Guess What:

Clue: Could be bad news if you were a fly.

No prizes. Just for fun. Answer and any guesses will be revealed next Monday.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

The Great Spotted Woodpecker visited later in the day than I expected. So far it doesn't seem to have sampled the peanut butter, just the peanuts. That gave a Blue Tit a chance to visit the log feeder:



So far Blue Tits, Great Tits and Starlings have tried out the log feeder.

Home Made Peanut Butter Feeder

A short while ago I saw a peanut butter feeder made from a thin log. The idea being to attract Woodpeckers. As I recently cut down a small tree which was far from healthy I had some bits of branch to try out. Choosing a reasonable thickness of branch I cut off a length, drilled a hole through near the top to put a wire for hanging, then drilled three large holes which I could fill with peanut butter.

 

I am using peanut butter marketed for feeding to birds, it not having the added salt which is found in the varieties for human consumption. At first I wondered whether the butter would be soft enough to manipulate as the jars are meant to be put up horizontally and the peanut butter is fairly solid. As it turned out it was easy to scrape out with a round ended knife and pack in the holes in the log.

After a short trial with the log hanging on a hook I soon found out that Starlings could stand on the top and reach down so I hastily adder a 'roof' to the log. This does not stop them but makes it much harder work as they have to cling to the vertical wood and don't stay very long.

This is a very short first visit (slowed down to half speed) by a Blue Tit so it looks as though the log will attract some visitors.



Here's hoping for a few visits from the Woodpecker which occasionally visits the garden.

Friday at the Flicks - Apples, Pheasant

No sign of any Winter visiting thrushes here as yet but the local Starlings and Blackbirds are tucking in to the apples I put out. The apples are fixed on a bolt so they stay in place:



The cock Pheasant seems to have become a regular morning visitor. As I thought, Penny doesn't exactly welcome large birds to her garden but, ungainly as it is, the Pheasant can take off faster than Penny can reach it. Here it is cleaning up the seed scattered from the feeders by the Starlings:




Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Who Will be the First?

An extra feeder put up yesterday. A new item from CJ Wildlife, my regular bird food supplier. This is a well built hefty metal bracket which holds a jar of peanut butter. These jars are filled with peanut butter which doesn't contain the salt the human variety has. There is a bolt at the top which is gently screwed down on the neck of the jar and stops it from falling out.



I wonder who will be the first to find,  investigate and try it out.
Although there is a bit of a 'perch' under the jar I think it needs a bit of tinkering as the metal coating is very smooth and slippery. Maybe a felt or rubber pad to give a bit of traction.

King of the Castle

When I see a bird sitting on the highest place it can find to observe the world it always reminds me of the days when as youngsters we played King of the Castle where we would battle to hold on to the highest place around.

European Starling (Stumus vulgaris)





At the moment there are not so many as in previous years and they are visiting less frequently. They are so quarrelsome, greedy and wasteful in the way they scatter food all over the place the smaller birds are able to get their fair share of the seed I put out.