Birds hide and seek

Normally, I'd consider the birds in the garden to be very macho: they would approach cautiously when I would do the weeding or cutting the lawn, wait until my back was turned, then swoop down and gobble down any incautious worms on the ground surface. In the winter months, the robins, especially, who look deceptively cheerful, but are one of the most ferocious predators (at least, as far as worms are concerned) would come closer to keep me company.

However, when tidying up the garden, I found the bird feeder, and very shortly found that the birds rather liked it - or the contents. And I found that I rather liked sitting in the verandah watching the birds and trying (often unsuccessfully) trying to photograph them.

So I extended the bird feeder situation to the side of the back sun room. My sister warned that the buzzards and eagles from Mull may come in search of easy meals, so I put a roof on top of the seed tray; my daughter wondered if the cats of Iona would invade my garden, so I put the other seed tray on top of one of the many spare tables in the garden. Daily, more and more birds came, though my attempts at photographs were still pretty awful; this is the absolute best I could manage: