Strangely, one of the first things I did when I got here is buy a bird feeder. I'm just so excited to have an actual yard! Going to the garden centre was one of my first "on my own" outings. The one nearest us is HUGE. I think I spent about 2 hours there. The bird feeders and feed were right by the entrance so I took care of that in about 15 minutes and then spent the rest of the time in the store trying to strike the right balance between seemingly nonchalant browsing and wondering where the hell the exit was. The worst was when I would somehow work my way into a dead end filled with random garden equipment and of course someone had followed me down there so I would have to feign interest and act as if selection of tree pruners was really quite lacking in my opinion. I finally made it to the till. An elderly woman behind me noticed my selection of bird feeding equipment and launched into a lengtht description of her bird feeding set up and bragging (no, seriously, it felt that way) about the various types of birds she has visit her feeders - sparrows, wrens, blue tits etc. Of course, the blue tits were her favorite. She would not stop talking about them. Oh, the blue tits this and the blue tits that. TITS TITS TITS. All I could think was, "please, for the love of god, stop saying TITS!!". She noticed I did not share her enthusiasm for tits and I escaped.
I know it is January and we are a long way from legit springtime, but today felt rather springy! The weather has warmed up near 50 degrees and the birds were feasting. The feeder is right outside our kitchen window so I can watch them pretty easily. It took a while for them to get used to me standing there with my camera, but I finally got some shots. They aren't great because I was taking them through the window. Pretty cute though.
By the way, this is a blue tit.
I bought a birdhouse that has four different face plates to attract different types of birds. To me, they all look pretty much the same.
The diameters of the openings are actually all slightly different because apparently wild birds (according to the packaging) "can often be particular about entering holes that they consider too large".
That's a relief because if there is one thing I know for certain it is: birds do not know how to read.
