Friday, December 05, 2008

Halifax Town Centre

Wade Street (by Wickes)
1 pair of Bullfinch there the last few days eating the yellow rowan berries looked fantastic
1 Grey Wagtail over

No sign, or reports of Waxwings in the last day or so locally since 1st December when c20 were reported on Bird-Guides at Wade Street - their favourite berries on the rowans have been scoffed!
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3 comments:

Daniel Branch said...

chris the warden at ogden said he had one on the roundabout in town

3:59 pm
Steve Blacksmith said...

It's quite interesting that some berries get their seeds "robbed" from them. Perhaps it's worth checking. It's usually finches that do this.

This is really subverting evolution. The tree has developed nutritious berries to get it's seeds dispersed in birds' guts or when they regurgitate them.
I've seen a blackbird spitting out small objects with a shake of its head each time. On checking, they were holly seeds.

Finches have found that they can ignore the flesh of the fruit and get right to the seeds which are probably even more nutritious. The plant doesn't get dispersed.

I have seen a Greenfinch eat seeds from the dried dropping of some other bird.

Seed robbing I have noticed has been by Bullfinch from juneberry (Amelanchier), Chaffinch from rowan, Greenfnch from rosehips, Greenfinch from Daphne. The latter was the native D.mezereum, when the berries were still green. I believe these are very poisonous to humans, wether green or red.

I would be interested in any other examples of birds robbing seeds from fruit, or if any one knows anywhere it has been documented already.

6:49 pm
Muxy said...

Had to go shopping to Sainsbury's this morning, no Waxwings but a group of 8 Long Tailed Tits.

7:29 pm

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