The greenfinches seem to regard the peanut-filled bird feeder as their exclusive property. Though now and again a single bird turns up to take advantage of a few minutes’ peace, they usually arrive in a gang of 10 or so. They are rowdy and aggressive, having little patience with whichever of their number is currently occupying the feeder. They range themselves along the fence wire or sit atop the little section of green windbreak watching intently.
Over and over again, the bird in possession drives its bill into the peanuts, probing and worrying away until it has collected sufficient to be worth withdrawing through the mesh to be consumed. With other birds about whose speedy departure would warn of danger, the incumbent barely bothers to turn its attention from the feeder.
Sooner or later one of the watching greenfinches is unable to stand the waiting any longer and launches itself at the valuable source of winter food. Often this is enough for the original bird to cede possession – but not always. Sometimes the two lift squabbling into the air, wings beating madly, legs outstretched, clawed feet raised against each other. And inevitably, while they are so engaged, one or more of the gang seize their opportunity and alight on the feeder.
Meanwhile on the ground beneath, away from the hurlyburly, a single dunnock and a female chaffinch take advantage of what drops from above. Though their paths frequently cross, rather than competing for the fallen peanut fragments they virtually ignore one another’s presence, each seemingly content with what they find as they search among the remains of last year’s plant growth and the first of the new daffodil shoots. And when the greenfinches are absent for a while, both of them have started to visit the actual source of the peanuts itself.
More cautious, more aware of their vulnerability, as a bird alone needs to be, neither sits out in the open on the feeder but shins sideways up a slender branch of the nearby elder, from which relative safety the peanuts are just about within reach.
