Not all garden birds are darlings, to be fed out of the goodness of your heart and cherished. If you had ever watched a bullfinch, handsome in a "be-damned-to-you" sort of way, demolish the fruit buds on your apple trees, for example, you would probably have identified enemy number one among the smaller inhabitants. The expert Cabot tells us that "a single bird [bullfinch] can knock off up to 45 buds per minute." But the rest are not only harmless but beneficial to the well-being of your plot in their consumption of the various crawlings things that spoil your flowers or herbs or vegetables, and they cheer your heart, especially if you have a little bird-bath pool with running water, where everything from blackbirds (quarrelsome at times and bullying) thrushes, (shy), and tits of various stripes wallow, not to forget the goldcrest and the robin.
A magpie once tried to get down to the water but was beset by a parcel of blackbirds. It all varies from district to district. A French writer tells us it is possible to spoil your birds by making things too easy. We'll come to that another day. But let's look at sparrows. This district is bare of them. Yet a friend who lives out Sandymount way on Dublin Bay has more than he ever remembers. He also has pigeons, which create a problem - not so much for him as for a lady who lives next door and is a light sleeper.
The noise of pigeons on her roof in the morning is an irritation for her. The pigeons, not the brightest of birds, wait making their gurgling noises until the sparrows have split seed. For our friend built an ingenious anti-pigeon bird table. It has a hood, wider than the table itself and the gap between is about two and a half inches. But he forgot that the sparrows would scatter the seed, being, apparently, clumsy eaters. (Worse, they pluck out the fluffy tops of his pampas grass to make lining for their nests.) He finds himself up a ladder at times to shoo off the pigeons which disturb his neighbour. A good deed, yet he finds the cooing restful.
If a garden bird is to be defined as any regular visitor, how about a hooded crow which has taken to pecking vigorously at a log which holds down the lid of a bin (permanently filled with emergency fuel)? He scatters the bits for yards around. When not pecking, he sits on the veranda rail and defecates. Voluminously. Is he digging for wormy insects? Is he daft or just enjoying the discomfiture of the inhabitants? Is he a garden bird through these exertions? He's certainly a major player in the present scene. But we've only just begun on the topic. For young children, surely the little architectural miracles of the nests must be the thrill.