Greedy Critters

[maggiebee]

Filled one of my feeders yesterday with niger seed (up to the brim). All gone this morning. Large number of bluetits, coaltits, sparrows etc fighting for position. Lovely to watch so it's filled once more - wonder how long this lot will last?

[tonyav]

Not very long, I shouldn't wonder, maggie.

[237SJ]

We`ve got a lot of parakeets around here. Next door has got about four birdfeeders and the parakeets and pigeons come to them. They`ve got a bit of team work going on. The parakeets cling on to the bird feeders and eat the seed, then the pigeons hoover up what`s dropped on the ground. They all flock together now.

[Fitzer]

I had a niger seed feeder part emptied by a tawny mining bee once, it found one of the feeding holes and thought 'aha a handy hole to dig in' and just kept going. I found it after it had dumped about an inch of seed on the ground and persuaded it to find somewhere more suitable, gawd knows how long it would have continued for :-)

[maggiebee]

Oh that's interesting Fitzer, don't think I would know what a tawny mining bee would look like. Must google it and keep an eye open.

[Fitzer]

I'm not trying to say I did before I looked it up :-)

[Khandro]

I have just returned from chugging around on the canals of Bourgogne, and one sunny morning saw on a long 5-arched stone bridge which crossed the canal and the River Yonne alongside it, a large flock of pidgeons trying with mixed success to cling to the vertical stonework. They work grip the stone with their feet flapping their wings until they could get a satisfactory hold, then (those who succeded) would remain still with wings outstreched and the side of their head against the stone. I first thought it was something to do with insects for food, but they didn't peck at all. Anyone any idea what they were doing, could it be playing, simply showing off that they could do it?

[ladybirder]

Please cross out 'Greedy' in your heading maggie and replace it with 'Hungry'. If they were all fat and bloated I'd agree with your heading but they're not. They have to fight for survival. Got my serious head on this morning:-)

[Khandro]

sorry, I entered my above post on this thread, it was meant to be a seperate question.