Thursday 6 August 2009

that's crazy!

Coal tits are frequent garden visitors. Along with great tits and blue tits, they are commonly seen at bird feeders. They go into a feeding frenzy when black sunflower seeds are offered.

The birds take a seed, dash away to hide it, and then return for another. Their grand plan is to store seeds during periods of abundance, so that they can eat during times of shortage. The little birds seem to distribute their seeds quite indiscriminately. Seeds have appeared on the window sill and rogue sunflowers frequently grow from forgotten seeds hidden in pots and hanging baskets. I'm guessing that the birds must have phenomenal memories because they will probably take scores of seeds each day to hide. If they don't have amazing memories, their manic efforts will amount to the greatest waste of energy in the animal kingdom.

Or perhaps they've just got a well developed sense of fun...

I was looking at our outdoor fig today, admiring the fruits that have over-wintered and searching for new signs of fruit for next year.

Then I spotted the coal tits little gift. Pushed into a fissure in the small tree was a seed that is just germinating.

That's crazy!

1 comment:

Lisa said...

Rob,
What a great photo! We don't have tits, of course, but a few other seed catchers. But they're not doing the kind of planting that the tits do.

Thanks for sharing,
Lisa