[Madelinew]

I have a thrush in my garden and always see it around the same area. I've also noticed blackbirds chasing it off. So are blackbirds as responsible for their plight as the gardener? That is a little tongue in cheek to be honest but I have seen blackbirds bashing snails to pieces for the meat so I assume they are competition for food.

I spend many hours watching the behaviour of the blackbirds and the general pecking order of the bird table and they do make me laugh quite often. For example, there is a very feisty female who sees all the males off when it comes to feeding. Another male has mastered the art of hanging off feeders as a safer alternative to challenging her at the table. And they spend many hours getting quite worked up defending a favourite feeding spot while actually failing to feed while doing so. They'll see off the occasional robin but a couple of starlings went unchallenged this morning with stressed out male hanging around nearby waiting for his opportunity.

In fact they are rather stressed birds in all. I did read an article recently - may have been either RSPB mag or BBC Wildlife - which stated that they do expend an awful lot of energy defending a bush of berries while actually failing to feed themselves from it.

I have mastered the art of feeding them cos they are notoriously messy eaters and can quickly empty the table onto the floor while sorting through seed for their favourite morsels. Going back to a childhood of Blue Peter from which I got and varied the recipe, I have always made my own 'cake' for the table, encasing dried fruit, good quality birdseed and crushed peanuts in melted lard, letting it set and putting it out for them. No mess all over the floor and it attracts all sorts to the bird table. A variation on suet blocks I suppose.

It was great to realise that I could identify individual blackbirds too. I've worked out that we have 6 blackbirds (only one is female) and each have distinctive differences to either plumage or beak colour to separate them.

That and I obviously have FAR FAR too much time on my hands!