EuroLife: Day 35

Today I am happy to report that Dolores-Bird relations could not be better. They have accepted my food offering, and have spread the news to all of their friends. Today I will give you a brief account of the birds outside of our window. Those of you who think birdwatching is lame (and you know who you are, Angela) can skip today's entry.

The most common bird at our feeder is the Great Tit. We have a ton of them, and you see them all over Jena. They're very cute, with striking yellow bellies and black and white faces. I still don't have a great picture of the Great Tit, probably because I'm not as inclined to jump up and take one when I see them. For a while, they were really pushing the lone Blue Tit around, so they got on my nerves.



As I said in an earlier post, they are also blue (rather than black), and their faces are quite different from that of the Great Tit.The Blue Tit is my personal favorite. These guys look a lot like the Great Tit, but are significantly smaller. They have white cheeks with a black stripe through their eyes; I like to think of them as the Zorro of the Bird Kingdom. They like to sit on the top of the bird feeder until it is available. Really, everything they do is cute.

We now also have quite a few European Greenfinches. These birds are about the size of the Great Tit, and they are a dull olive green interspersed with yellow. We saw one for the first time yesterday, and by yesterday evening there was a pair. They are rapidly taking over; there were at least half a dozen hanging around today.

They are interesting to watch, but they are bullies at the feeder. Sometimes one will sit on the feeder for minutes and peck at any bird that tries to share the feeder. Often, the finch will not actually be eating when it does this; it just likes to hog the territory, I guess. There is one pair that does something even more strange: even though both look like adults, the male seems to feed the female. He gets seeds from the feeder and puts them in her mouth! Sometimes she'll sit on the feeder bar with him while he does this, other times she'll fly next to the him to eat. If anyone who actually knows a thing about birds can tell me why they do this, I'd be glad to know!




There is only one more bird worthy of mention, and I can't take any credit for this one. A Great Spotted Woodpecker comes most mornings and pecks away at a tree right outside our window. It's truly incredible to look at, and my picture doesn't come close to capturing him. I'll keep trying.

I suppose the Magpies should also be noted. They birds are as common as Crows are back home, but they look pretty cool. I seem to remember some cartoon about two British Magpies...a very old Black and White cartoon...does anyone else remember this? Michael does not.