Irish birds go nuts for feeding

Irish wild birds have acquired some very exotic tastes, writes Dick Warner.

It occurred to me, as I was idly watching my bird feeders, that Irish wild birds have acquired some very exotic tastes. Take peanuts for example. When did our finches, sparrows and tits first develop a taste for them? The peanut, groundnut or goober is a rather odd plant. It’s a member of the pea and bean family which forms a small shrub which produces little yellow flowers.

When these are pollinated they droop down towards the ground and produce a tendril, called a peg, which penetrates the soil and burrows down into it. The seeds then develop in a hard pod underground. Botanists call the process geocarpy.