Bird-Feeding

Steve Braunias in today’s Sunday paper describes making porridge for his bird-feeding station. Not only am I not capable of doing this I have never felt the urge. I’m comfortable throwing them their daily slice of bread and getting Anne to hang a suet ball on the fence.

I had to laugh this afternoon. There was a congregation of sparrows tugging around the slice and in the middle having the feast and the ride of his life was a wax-eye. There was even a thrush pecking at the crumbs scattered by the sparrows. Sparrows illustrate the term ‘bird-brain’. They’ll fly to a branch with a large crumb. They can’t eat it so it drops to the ground where the odds are another sparrow will grab it first.

One of my regrets is I can no longer go to the Karori wild-life sanctuary. I used to enjoy bird-feeding, taking sugar-water to the bellbird stations.