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When I see long lists of plants
that you can grow in your garden to attract birds, I
think there is an element of wishful-thinking. From my
own experience, I would hesitate to recommend more
than a handful as being worth planting specifically to
attract birds. There are many more I would plant for
their horticultural appeal, while hoping that they
might also interest birds.
Last week my bird cherry was
swarming with birds and there is little of its crop
left. The most consistent visitors are blackbirds:
enough for a small pie. A flock of starlings would
swoop in (left), feed for a minute or so, and rush off.
Woodpigeons, collared doves, song and mistle thrushes,
and redwings (right) were also seen. There was even a green
woodpecker, as pretty as a parrot, balancing on a twig
and reaching out to pick cherries. (I have checked in
the books and find that the species has been recorded
as occasionally taking a wide variety of fruit.)
I was interested to see the
different methods of gathering fruit used by the
different species. For the most part, the birds reach
out from a perch to pluck the nearest cherries.
Woodpigeons look clumsy but they are surprisingly
adept, leaning down a long way and craning their necks
to reach distant cherries. Starlings, with their
strong legs, can hang upside down. Blackbirds pluck
the nearest cherries while perched but fly out in
short sallies, flycatcher-style, to get distant ones.
So far as I can tell, the Song Thrush and Redwing are
more likely to use the sally technique, flying out,
fluttering under a bunch of cherries to pull one off
and landing on another perch. This could be because
they are more manoeuvrable in flight or because they
need to use their weight to detach the fruit.
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