I WILL miss life at the feeder when I travel abroad to hide away and finish a book about west Cork.
Nobody hangs out peanut feeders in the Canary Islands — the weather in La Gomera is kind throughout the winter. It would hardly make a human shiver, let alone a bird.
I remember over the years certain Februarys with downpours when the air cooled and one might don a light jacket but, as in Ireland, the sun often breaks through shortly after showers. Some similarity is not surprising — both are Atlantic islands, although La Gomera, almost circular and, at most, 32 km in diameter, rises to 1,470m, some 400m higher than Carrantuohill. When the sun breaks through after rain, one can literally see the water vapour rising over the fields, but before it has reached much higher than the potato haulms, it has already disappeared. Like here, the world is fresh and sparkling but, in Gomera, with its warmer sun, the air is full of the smell of the rich, volcanic soil.
Life at the feeder sounds like the title of a David Attenborough television programme. In fact, close-up — happening outside our kitchen window — events at the peanut feeder can be as dramatic as footage a natural history cameraman might bring back from far-flung lands. Never mind the dramatic entrance of the garden’s grim reaper, the Sparrowhawk — for that, later in this article — the cut-and-trust between the smaller birds is a drama unfolding, bloodless but lethal if the weather is hard and they must compete for food or die.
Bullying is then prevalent. Great tits bully blue tits, species to species. However both species in an alliance will bully the smaller coal tits and, with flurries of wings, sharp voices and snaps of the beak, keep them away from the food.
Some years we have had outstanding bullies at our feeder, a hen blackcap worst of all. As I reported in this column at the time, even when we hung the three feeders up to 20 yards distance from one another, she whizzed back and forth (surely an unwise expenditure of energy) driving visitors away from each.
Robins are always martinets at the feeder, self-importantly hopping about, puff-chested — red for danger !— scattering smaller birds. And long-tailed tits, travelling in troops of up to 20, can, despite their small size and engaging, powder-puff appearance, mob the feeder, allowing no other species a chance.
Mugging is another aggressive tactic employed by individuals when in desperation. They wait until a smaller, weaker or less assertive bird has prised a nut from the feeder and, rushing at them, frighten them into dropping the bounty, which they then seize.
In Britain, I have seen a nuthatch, a species we don’t have here, employ this strategy all winter, never foraging for itself, simply forcing the smaller birds to work for it, slave labourers constantly surrendering the rewards of their toil until their tormentor, sated, would leave them to feed themselves. Most exciting of all to watch at work is, I’m afraid, the sparrowhawk. When one spots it hidden in a tree, absolutely still and eyeing the birds at the feeders, should one intervene, rush out and scatter the diners before it launches its attack? When it lowers and then bobs its head and one knows it is aiming, focusing and judging the precise distance to its kill, should one alarm the victim into flight? I think not. We are behind the glass. We are the observers, not the gods. This is nature catering for its diverse tribe.
The sparrowhawk, as it launches itself, at first floats down the air and then, with a couple of powerful flaps of its wings, rockets towards its victim. It is a thing of beauty, a divine creation, as lovely as Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Windhover.
Generally it will not succeed in the initial strike. The victim, at the last minute, will see it coming and dodge, and then a zigzag chase will follow through branches and corridors of trees with the big bird, six times the size of its prey, swerving and turning and, if successful, seizing its victim in flight.
But only one-in-10 attacks succeeds and, in each, the risk is considerable for the sparrowhawk. It must hunt with patience and precision, with keen eyesight and true flight. Should it damage a wing in the chase it will not itself survive.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, January 31, 2011
