THIS
IS GETTING RIDICULOUS; at breakfast-time we have another goldfinch
casualty at the patio windows. Two of them are so busy chasing each other that
they bang into the window almost simultaneously.Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary
Monday, 8th January, 2007
THIS
IS GETTING RIDICULOUS; at breakfast-time we have another goldfinch
casualty at the patio windows. Two of them are so busy chasing each other that
they bang into the window almost simultaneously.
They're so wrapped up in what they're doing that I doubt whether a hawk silhouette on our window would have made any difference at all.
One of them flies straight off, the other plummets to the ground, flutters around on the patio before ending up, head down, on the flower bed. I didn't go for a cardboard box this time, assuming that it had no chance of recovery.
However
when I went out some time later it had gone so whether it had made a miraculous
recovery (I hope so) or whether it had been carried off by the black cat that
occasionally
crosses our garden I don't know. I have noticed that the local sparrowhawk sits
on the feeder looking intently down into that corner and it sometimes hops down
to look under the hedge. Assuming that goldfinches don't just hit the window
when we happen to be sitting there eating lunch or breakfast, there might be
a regular supply of stunned casualties.
Well,
it's for there own good; I refill the sunflower feeders and, while I've got
them off the shepherd's crook feeding poles, I take the poles further down the
flower bed and drive them in the ground at a safe distance from our patio windows.
Hope that results in fewer bird strikes. It's a shame that we don't get such
close-ups of the birds but I'd rather they were safe.