Ructions!!!

I've been in the house for just a year now. 

One of the biggest disappointments after living at Ma's with that huge garden has been the lack of visiting garden birds. My back yard is truly minuscule so I can't have a bird table and any fat balls or seed feeders I've managed to dangle from cup hooks on the trellis have been resolutely ignored by all and sundry. 

I can see and hear a robin nearby and I've seen a wren bobbing around in the trellis (HUGE excitement when I saw him) so this week I decided to take a more proactive step and ordered a few live mealworms to try and tempt the robin. Yesterday when I could see him sitting in the tree opposite I put the little tub on the shed roof and within minutes he couldn't resist coming for a look. 

Gotcha.

This morning he was shouting for his worms so I duly put the pot on the shed roof again and all was lovely. The wren was pootling in and out and the robin kept firing across from his favourite tree. Even the half-bald blackbird I saw when I first moved in and a couple of house sparrows made a brief appearance and I could hardly believe it when I spotted a thrush on the wall across from me. Completely delighted by it all.

After a couple of hours of this I was making a cuppa when all hell broke loose. The starlings had spotted the pot of worms and arrived mob handed then started kicking the pot around. The robin was having none of it! He saw them all off with a fine display of aggression. 

I couldn't get a picture of the actual fight because a) it was over in seconds and b) the angles are so tight that I'd have to get a ladder out and then I'd be about 8 inches away, but you can see how much bran was thrown up in the kerfuffle :)