Friday 16 May 2008

Peanut Control

Once again the poor weather kept me behind glass. Lord's wasn't the only place where bad light curtailed play.

This Great Tit has suddenly taken to using this peanut feeder. It had remained virtually unused for several weeks but it has now become a favourite of this bird.

Not only is it using the feeder regularly but it seems to be acting as a peanut quality control mechanism all by itself. I'm not at all clear what the criteria are, they all come from the same, fresh bag and they all look the same to me, but the bird sits at the feeder opening and picks out a peanut, looks at it and then more often or not quite deliberately drops it on the ground. Occasionally it likes the look of one and takes it up the tree, and hammers at it while it eats it.

Magpies are resourceful birds and this one has taken to feeding under the peanut feeder and collecting the peanuts that have been rejected by the Great Tit.

Strangely, it then takes them up to the bird bath, where it dunks them before eating them. I can understand that this is an advantage when softening stale bread, but it don't think it can have any affect on the peanuts.

Moths Still very quiet but I did catch my first White Ermine and Garden Carpet of the year.

White Ermine

Garden Carpet.

1 comment:

lee said...

whole peanuts can harmfull too all animals as well as the toxins being a problem whole nuts expand in the stomach and if theve eaten a lot of them can cause the stomach lining to split if however the nuts are pre soaked for24 hours the nuts would have expaned fully and therfore made safe i no corvids are clever but surley not that clever