A chat with the wild bird expert.

This afternoon we popped into the local garden centre and got chatting to Martin, the wild bird expert. He was very interested (or at least he gave a good impression of being very interested) by our list of the birds we've had in our garden. Luckily for us our garden ticked all the boxes in terms of size, location and altitude. Because we back onto a field and there is a wood just behind that we enjoy a good variety of birds in the garden. Martin was dubious of my claim to have seen a lesser spotted woodpecker but I'm sure that is what I saw (on the day that Luke had taken his memory card out so I couldn't get a photograph to prove my claim). He said they were only the size of sparrows and I think the bird I saw was more like a nuthatch size but I am pretty much convinced that it wasn't the greater spotted woodpecker that I snapped over Christmas time.

On the subject of nesting, Martin said it was a good time to put up bird boxes as the birds are now looking for places to nest. He advised that the bird box we'd placed in the tree would be better placed lower down, tucked away in the shrubs as it was aimed at robins or blackbirds (it's the type with an open front whereas the tit box has a closed front with just a hole in it which has to be at least 32mm). We can't put one of those in the tree either as the flight path is obstructed by the two bird feeders. The tits apparently like their nest boxes in trees so they can check out the box from a branch before flying into it. Jenny at work said she saw her neighbours' cat sitting on top of a nest box recently, hoping for some bird activity and a free lunch.

Luke joined the RSPB so we can get some bird news throughout the year and Martin said to look him up when he's next in the garden centre. The sad thing was that he said all garden birds are in gradual decline, mainly because their natural habitat was being eroded to build housing estates. He said the birds weren't going anywhere else so he was trying to encourage people to offer the right habitat and food for the remaining birds.

When we lived in the old house, near the city centre, we tried without success to introduce different birds into the garden. We fed an army of house sparrows with an occasional visit from a sparrow hawk and the ever present gardener's friend, the robin, and a pair of doves but now we enjoy so many varied breeds that we don't mind the bill for their food. After all, we were happy enough to take their homes from them in order to build ours. It's the least we can do now, to share it with them.