Hanging around

The Blue Tits are such comics and acrobats!  They are also messy eaters, they fling seed about, which is what feeds the pheasants underneath the bird feeders.

I have three bird feeders at the far end of the lawn, under which there is always a small flock of pheasants.  I have to move the bird feeders regularly as they scratch up the lawn and make a terrible mess.

When I put this new bird feeder on my window, I wanted to avoid having pheasants making a mess on the patio straight outside the house.  So I sellotaped a flimsy clear plastic tray (that held fruit at some point) on the window ledge underneath the feeder to catch all the bits of seeds.  That worked well for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I found the tray on the floor and assumed that the sellotape must have given way.  So I stuck it back on carefully.  An hour later I heard a strange noise, and found two hen pheasants on the patio leaping into the air to head-butt the tray, which was almost off again.  The pheasants had no doubt seen the little birds feeding, watched the seeds fall into the tray, and had worked out how to get the seeds for themselves.

I'm now trying to work out how to prevent the pheasants from being able to dislodge the tray.  I didn't expect to find myself struggling to pit my wits against two pea-brained pheasants...

The weather is lovely today.  We took a different walk through the woods (extra) and sat in short-sleeves outside :-)